


Keep One Broken Piece

by hidden_inside_of_you



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: :), Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Kalagang, Sense8 AU, kalagang au, no Rajan of any kind, sense8 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidden_inside_of_you/pseuds/hidden_inside_of_you
Summary: A mysterious series of bombings is the opportunity that Detective Wolfgang Bogdanow has been waiting for to prove his abilities to the prestigious Bundespolizei, but his investigation quickly becomes personal when he is assigned to work alongside Dr. Kala Dandekar, his ambitious ex-girlfriend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started another AU because I'm the worst :) 
> 
> The title is taken from one of my favorite songs/artists -- To the Hilt/BANKS
> 
> This first chapter is very short but the future ones will be closer to my typical length, about 10K.

Wolfgang Bogdanow swears softly as he digs a staple out of a case file, flicking the bent scrap of metal to the floor and shoring up the coffee-stained pages. He pauses to fix a dog-ear then looks up at the beep of his watch, a reminder to go home. Without this, he tends to work into the night, too absorbed to notice the time. He glances out of his office at the empty desks, then at his watch-- 21:34 -- and staples the pages in the file. He lays it on a neat stack, and gets to his feet but hesitates, his hand gripping the back of his chair as he looks through the window at the frozen fog.

He tips the chair back and considers resuming his work. His jaw tenses and he glances down, then forces himself to leave his desk and take his jacket from a hook near the door. He walks through the dark, empty office and glances at the only other person still at work -- the lanky IT guy, hunched over a laptop which casts a blue glow. His typing echos as Wolfgang passes the door.

“Don’t stay too late,” Wolfgang mumbles.

Felix doesn’t look up, continuing to type. “Right.”

Wolfgang smiles slightly at this and goes outside into the lobby, striding over the Bundespolizei crest on the floor; he gives his P30 to the guard at the exit and opens his briefcase to show he didn’t take anything classified out of the office, then continues across the icy lot to his car.

He sits for a moment, massaging his wrists, and listens to the police feed while the windshield defrosts; his mind drifts to the case he was wrapping earlier and he glances through the glass at the dense trees which border the back of the station.

The windshield clears but he remains motionless, reluctant to return to his empty apartment, and he watches a familiar figure exit the forensics office and walk to the only other car in the lot. He sees her leave often, both of them prone to staying late, but he hasn’t spoken to her in nearly a year, though not for lack of effort.

He takes his gaze from her and breathes out heavily before putting his foot on the gas. He drives towards the river, flicking his wipers on as it begins to rain, and listens distantly to the news on the radio, the announcers speculating about the recent string of bombings. At a stop, he looks to his left, the rain pooling along the street, reflecting the orange and blue lights of a small market; he watches a couple struggle with an umbrella and laugh together, and he lets out a long, weary breath.

This morning, he overheard his colleagues express how they suspect everyone they pass on the street now, but his experience has been the opposite of this -- tonight as he glances out at the couple in the rain, he is afraid for them.

At home, he tosses his keys into a dish, and kneels down to greet his dog -- a German Shepard that failed police academy and needed a home.

“Hey, Moose--”

Moose whines and wiggles her whole body, picking her feet up so her nails clack on the floor. Wolfgang resigns himself to going back outside, pulls a stocking hat over his head, and puts Moose on a leash; she jumps on her back feet and paws his side in excitement and he laughs despite his exhaustion, pushing her down.

Outside, they walk alongside the dark red Markthalle to a narrow cobbled street, ducking under the eaves of grungy grey apartments and beside small cafes. He realizes his last meal was around midday, so he stops at a cart near the intersection ahead and purchases a döner kebab, then wanders slowly around a poorly-lit park across the street. Leaves scatter across the icy path and Moose leaves prints in the snow nearby. The sound of the city comes to Wolfgang like an unresolved chord and he stands still for a moment, breath clouding in the air.

Then Moose stands suddenly alert and Wolfgang’s grip tightens on the leash. He stares ahead into the darkness, punctuations of light from beyond the trees, and the city shakes underneath his feet.

***

Four blocks away, Kala Dandekar wrenches up from sleep and stares out the window at the rising smoke; sirens ring out on the street below and she blinks, chest rising and falling hard, and she looks to the empty space beside her where Wolfgang used to sleep.

She looks away as if stung, then stays still, fingers clenched as another explosion sounds, as the city trembles again. She takes an unsteady breath, forcing herself slowly to her feet, and walks to the window, red and blue lights spilling over her as the police respond.

She licks her lips and takes another breath, then closes her eyes and dips her head down, waiting for the call, which comes only a moment later.

She answers tiredly. “Dandekar.”

Jonas Maliki sounds nearly as strained as she feels. “The Chancellor will call a state of emergency tomorrow. A Committee has been formed and you will be our forensic adviser and explosives specialist.”

She nods before realizing what he said. Then she inhales sharply and looks up in alarm. “Me?”

“The Committee will meet tonight, you have half an hour,” Maliki says.

“I -- tonight?” she asks. “We won’t be able to examine the scene until it has been cleared--”

“You are meeting with the Chancellor tomorrow,” interrupts Maliki. “Consider tonight a briefing.”

He hangs up. Kala stares, the phone still to her ear, and then she rushes to her closet to take a crisp grey suit from the hangers. She dresses quickly and puts her hair in a neat bun, takes a moment to apply mascara and lipstick, and slides her feet back into the black heels she was relieved to take off only an hour ago.

She stares at herself in the mirror by the door and blinks; her jaw tenses and she closes her eyes to breathe, and then she steps outside into the rain and smoke, bathed in a chaos of lights and sirens.

***

Wolfgang pours scotch into his coffee and looks dully at Felix across the conference table. Felix’s mouth twitches, almost a scowl, and he shakes his head.

“They fucking had to set a bomb off at night,” he says. “Couldn’t wait till morning.”

“Clubs are empty in the morning,” replies Wolfgang, sitting in one of the leather chairs and taking a long drink.

“I was _just_ leaving when I got the call,” complains Felix. “What the fuck do they need me for? The fuck is this anyway?”

Wolfgang shrugs. “They just told me to be here.”

“Yeah, well, we’re the little guys,” replies Felix. “They’ll make us do all the bullshit research and then they’ll be the ones to get medals. You know they don’t tell me a fucking thing? I never know where my intel goes.”

“You don’t want the whole story,” mumbles Wolfgang.

“Yeah, why’s that?” asks Felix, getting up and grabbing the flask from beside Wolfgang’s mug.

Wolfgang drinks more coffee. “Because we aren’t always the good guys.”

“I’d still rather know,” says Felix after a moment, pouring scotch into his own coffee.

Wolfgang smirks and quietly whistles and Felix throws an empty dixie cup at him. “Fuck off! I wouldn’t be a whistleblower if I knew the bad shit, okay? I’m not that fucking noble. I’m just curious.”

Wolfgang shakes his head and drinks his coffee, glancing around the empty conference room; he and Felix don’t look at each other until they hear the click of heels in the hall outside. Felix perks his eyebrows in interest and they turn their attention to the door. Beyond the frosted glass, the silhouette of a woman appears, and a moment later, she enters the conference room with a look of tired apprehension. When she sees Wolfgang, however, she holds still.

Wolfgang inhales, eyes going soft, and they stare at each other.

“Oh, you’re fucking kidding,” murmurs Felix.

Kala lets out a shaky breath, shoulders squared, and walks without a word to the head of the table. She takes out a legal pad and purses her lips, jotting the date at the top of the paper.

Wolfgang wishes he could take his eyes off her, but he is hungry for details that may explain the months of her life that he has missed. He studies her brown skin, the frizzy curls along her hairline, her ruby earrings and perfectly-ironed suit. She looks as she always used to, but he wishes she didn’t. He wishes she looked as different as she insists she feels, but she still resembles Kala, his Kala.

His eyes linger on her stiff, thin shoulders and he exhales sharply at the memory of hugging her from behind.

She looks up at him and says tersely, “Yes?”

“I didn’t say anything, Kala,” he mumbles, glancing away.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” he replies.

“I do know why I’m here,” she says primly. “I am an explosives and forensics consultant for this committee.”

He breathes out in cold amusement. “Great.”

She stares at him, then looks at her paper and begins to write again. He drinks his coffee, now for the alcohol and not the caffeine, then takes out a notepad too. He looks again at Kala, noting a stony determination on her slender features; she feels his gaze and once again meets his eyes without warmth.

“Please say it’s not just us working on this,” says Felix. “Because I’ll kill myself with just you two in the room.”

“Jonas Maliki,” says Kala without looking up. “I don’t know who else but I suspect Director Brandt.”

“Oh, that fucking creep,” says Felix.

“How have you kept this job so long?” murmurs Wolfgang.

Felix raises his eyebrows. “I hacked Brandt’s nudes so they can’t fire me.”

Wolfgang nods slowly. “Never share those.”

“I’ll do what I have to do,” says Felix with mock sincerity, lugging his laptop up onto the conference table, adding as he types, “where the fuck is everyone?”

“Traffic is very slow because of the bombing,” says Kala. “Especially in Moabit.”

Wolfgang glances at her again, recognizing the name of her neighborhood, now worried. “Did you hear it?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, capping her pen; she plays gently with her earlobe, an indication of her distress, and glances out the window. “Yes, it was across the street from me.”

None of them speak. Wolfgang gets up to pour more coffee and they wait for the arrival of the other agents; the metallic click of the clock and the distant sirens fill the silence.

Wolfgang tries not to look at Kala, but his eyes are continuously drawn to her; his stomach churns, turning with each glance to acid; he resents her self-control as she writes out some preliminary notes, her eyes never once straying to him.

When she stops writing, she directs her gaze out the window; her long lashes flicker and her hand trembles slightly as she plays with her pen; she swallows hard and her shoulders rise as she takes a slow breath. Wolfgang suspects that she didn’t expect to be invited to this committee, but neither did he, so he doesn’t question her presence.

He keeps his gaze soft, his hand loose around his mug, observing her as if she’s a suspect that he’s reluctant to startle or reveal himself to. He feels Felix look at him, but doesn’t indulge him with a response.

Five minutes pass before new footsteps thankfully sound in the hall; two more agents that Wolfgang recognizes by sight but not by name enter the room and sit, and a few minutes later, six more join. It’s nearly 23:00 when Maliki finally joins them, sitting next to Kala with a short nod, and almost a half hour after that when Director Brandt arrives, straight-backed and slow, a briefcase in his hand. He clears his throat and takes the seat on the other side of Kala, then smiles placidly at the table.

“Our latest count, including tonight,” he says in an inappropriately light tone, “is one hundred and eighteen. Surely that number will rise as the night goes on.” He puts his briefcase on the table and opens it, then begins to pass out badges. “Those of you here tonight have been awarded a temporary security clearance, and your titles on these badges correspond with your roles during this committee. When we conclude our investigation, which I hope will take no more than a year, you will return to your previous positions.”

“A year?” asks Felix after a pause.

Brandt smiles coldly. “Yes, Mr. Berner. I’m sure your work in our anti-terrorism division taught you that these investigations take time.”

“Oh, so that’s why I’m here, cool cool,” he replies.

Maliki shakes his head for a moment, then organizes some files in front of him and looks up with dark bags under his eyes. “We have decided to assign a specialist and an agent to each research area.” He begins to dispassionately list names in sets of two, and after a moment, he calls Wolfgang’s name and adds, “Kala Dandekar.”

Wolfgang looks at Kala, keeping his expression neutral, but his grip tightens on his now-cold mug. She regards him bitterly before looking away.

“That is all until tomorrow,” says Brandt. “You all may go, except for you Miss Dandekar.”

“She prefers Doctor,” says Wolfgang quietly.

“I can speak for myself,” says Kala.

Brandt glances at her with a slight tic. “ _Dr_. Dandekar.”

She looks at Wolfgang resentfully, but she nods at Brandt. Wolfgang’s gaze lingers on her, and then he shuts his notepad and rises to his feet. He lets most of the others exit before him so that he can watch Kala interact with Maliki and Brandt, but his observation is cut short when Felix shoves him towards the door.

“I need a beer,” says Felix tiredly. “And so do you. Fuck.”

He doesn’t argue, following his friend from the conference room and into the hall, which is lit only by an exit light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kala and Wolfgang struggle to keep their relationship professional.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wolfgang is an asshole in this chapter, feel free to hate on him in the comments, he's being a spectacular dickwad.

Kala steps out onto the steps of the Reichstag Building, bathed in weak sunlight that has failed to melt the ice on the field in front of her. She reaches into her purse for a silver case with the filigree of a hummingbird on it and takes out a cigarette, lighting it as Jonas steps alongside her.

She lifts her gaze to the field, uninhabited in winter, and feels Jonas exhale.

“You’ll attend many meetings like that in the future,” he tells her.

She closes her eyes to focus on the first drag from her cigarette. She felt as if her body was held together by spider silk the entire meeting, threatening to simply dissolve.

“They get easier,” adds Jonas.

“I doubt that,” she replies lightly, expelling the smoke through her lips and beginning down the stairs, staying a step ahead to avoid his glances.

At the street, Jonas goes towards the agency car that brought them here, but Kala prefers to walk and starts away from him at a fast clip, smoking with unusual urgency; her stomach turns and she pauses when she reaches the bridge across the Spree, one hand on the ornate railing to steady herself. She forces herself to continue after only a moment; the oaks and elms shake in a gust of wind and shed brown leaves into the water below her, and she walks more quickly in the chill, checking the crystal watch on her wrist.

She passes through a graffitied underpass, then races across the street to the median, where a sidewalk lined by trees emerges. She keeps her gaze fixed ahead as she passes Wolfgang’s building and sets her mind for the scene that she must face in only a moment; she supposes she should dread what she is about to see more than she should dread facing Wolfgang, but the truth is that she has examined many crime scenes and viewed countless bodies, so many that she’s as inured as anyone can be; she is not, however, used to being with him. Not since last year.

She forces her thoughts away from him and flicks the ash from her cigarette, passing the grocery store she shops at and the cafe that provides her with her weekend cheat foods like quiches and croissants. She slows her pace here, considering breakfast, but glances again at her watch and continues on.

She eyes the wreckage of the club after another moment and darts across the street again, her coat flying in a blast of wind; the sun disappears behind a cloud, the neighborhood darkening.

She steps alongside one of many police cars, news vans, and ambulances and silently presents her badge to a guard; she slips under the police tape, then stares at the broken glass and concrete, black body bags, and smoke still spiraling faintly from the skeleton of the building.

She breathes in deeply and pauses, recognizing Wolfgang from his rigid posture; he is closer to the club than she is, conversing with Agent Bak, both of them in uniform.

She gathers as much strength as she can from the presence of another woman -- one who was always at least civil toward her -- and joins them after extinguishing her cigarette.

Wolfgang’s eyes sweep her, lingering on her formal attire, but he glances away without speaking. She exhales hard through her nose, stung that he could not bring himself to say a simple hello.

“Hello, Sun...” she says dully.

Sun nods at her, and then the three of them look towards the entrance of the club as a body bag is carried out by two paramedics.

Kala swallows, turning over the theories that were relayed to her this morning; she supposes the rest of the committee will be briefed, though not as thoroughly as she was; she’s younger than they are, working for less, with a junior title; when she asked Jonas why he picked her as their forensic consultant, he responded that the choice was not his alone, and didn’t let her ask another question.

“I should examine the detonation zone,” she says quietly. “Forensics has already collected what’s left of the explosives but it can be helpful to--”

“Do you need me for th--”

“Do not interrupt me,” she says, turning with flashing eyes to Wolfgang. “We will be investigating where the bomb was sourced, which naturally doesn’t tell us everything, since it may be sourced in a location other than the one where the group or individual who is responsible is based, which is why they need us both, an analyst and an agent. I will tell you where to look, and you will look there, and tell me if my department’s findings correspond with your department’s intelligence.”

He nods, lips twitching, jaw tight. “Right.”

“The agency can replace you if you would prefer--”

“You’d like that,” he murmurs.

She keeps her gaze fixed on him and pauses a moment before speaking. “No.” She smiles but her eyes are icy. “You deserve this, Wolfgang.”

She turns away again, nods at Sun, and starts towards what was once the entrance to the club. Wolfgang follows her and they both flash badges at another guard; they step over a line of rubble, Kala’s heels clicking on the grimy grey floor, and regard the blackened remains of the building; the tip of Kala’s shoe connects with the edge of a rum bottle, somehow preserved in the chaos.

“The targets are inconsistent,” she remarks, deciding to keep their discussion limited to work. “A cafe, a market, a museum, and now this...”

“Don’t assume the consistency that matters to them is a message,” replies Wolfgang quietly. “All of the targets were highly populated.”

“Yes, but--” She stops, her eyes tracing the scars on the walls. “Have you been briefed?”

“Not since last night.”

She nods but doesn’t reply, bringing her phone up to her mouth, beginning to record her observations of the site. She pauses upon closer inspection of the wall.

“A nail bomb, consistent with previous RIEDs--”

“This is from shrapnel,” interrupts Wolfgang, coming alongside her and pressing his fingers to one of the indents.

Kala clicks her recording off. “Nail bombs often include shrapnel--”

He thumbs gently against the indent and she presses her lips together, studying his calloused hand. He pulls back and flicks some silvery powder off his finger. Kala’s curiosity briefly overtakes her reserve and steps closer.

“Is that aluminum?” she whispers, squinting.

“Who puts aluminum in a bomb?” he replies, rubbing the dust together between his fingers.

She toys her bottom lip. “The velocity of a projectile out of a bomb is greater than that out of a gun so hypothetically aluminum, despite its weight, could be effective but...”

“Did they find this at the other sites?”

She shakes her head and talks into her phone again, walking along the wall and studying it with dark, darting eyes, the wrinkle between her brows becoming more pronounced. Wolfgang follows her, also examining the wall, and then she turns and pockets her phone with an audible exhale.

“Have you seen this before?” she asks.

“No,” he replies, putting his hand to another indent in the wall and adding, “not every shrapnel was made of aluminum, this one’s clean.”

“It could also be silver, identification in the field is difficult,” she says, mostly to herself.

“Terrorists tend to have that lying around,” he mumbles.

She swallows her anger and says, “And it could also be chromium, nickel, or lead. You shouldn’t be touching anything without gloves.”

She turns away, continuing to record her observations, and keeps a greater distance between them than before; she walks slowly enough to gather details, and repeats her steps three times before she is satisfied with her inventory of the site. She notices Wolfgang take notes too -- on a small pad of paper, his style -- but doesn’t remind him that she is the expert here. She would rather he not talk, and notes keep him occupied.

After an hour, however, she is forced to rejoin him because it begins to rain heavily. She joins him at the front of the club, her face pinched in annoyance, and hugs herself as protection against the cold; she looks down, breathing in the dust picked up by falling water and the wet smoke from the rubble surrounds her.

“I want to examine the casings that were cataloged last night, so I’m going to the office” she mutters, then begins to walk away.

“I do too,” he says, going with her into the tumult along the street.

She hesitates, but looks across to her apartment and says, “My car is here.”

He doesn't argue. She pieces her way towards the sidewalk, dodging police, paramedics, agents, bureaucrats, and reporters who are clamoring at the edge of the police tape, which she must duck under to reach the other side of the street.

She pauses, planning her exit, her hair now dripping; she considers politely showing her badge and explaining she’s simply an analyst, but before she has the chance, Wolfgang ducks under the police tape and holds it up for her. She takes the opportunity and he shields her from the reporters, and they hurry across the street together to huddle under the eaves of a cafe.

She squeegees her hair with her hands and puts it up in a neat bun. Wolfgang lifts his shirt at the neck to dry his face, and Kala goes unexpectedly still and soft when he runs a hand through his drenched hair. She averts her eyes, hoping he didn’t notice her attention, and they duck into the parking garage under her building.

She tries not to think about how many times they were here together before.

She unlocks her car and the headlights flash in the dusky garage. She slides into the driver’s seat and clicks her seatbelt hard, and he sits next to her, shifting the seat back to accommodate his height. She turns on the car and the news she was listening to yesterday blares -- “the German delegation was reportedly unimpressed by the president’s remarks, and in one case, met his speech with muffled laughter.” Kala rolls her eyes and mutes the volume.

“What now?” asks Wolfgang.

“Oh, the usual, the American president made an ass of himself,” she says with raised eyebrows, pulling out of the lot.

Wolfgang smirks and nods, about to reply, but then he looks at her; he pauses, studying. “Why aren’t you wearing glasses?”

“I got contacts for driving,” she explains.

“Do those help you avoid trees?” he murmurs after a moment.

She lifts her chin up and squeezes the wheel hard. “That only happened once.”

“Only once.”

“Be quiet.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The old nickname stings her and she blinks but doesn’t respond. She turns onto the street towards the Bundespolizei headquarters and doesn’t speak again, despite the traffic congestion, which often leaves them stopped in silence, the fuel and fog gathering around the car; she spends these slow moments warming her hands on the heater while he checks his phone, but by the time she turns towards the office, she feels his urgency; she prays he doesn’t speak, but she recognizes the unspoken tension that precedes a remark.

“Are you alright?” he says quietly.

“What do you mean?” she says, each word self-contained and separate, escaping one at a time through her teeth.

“Kala,” he mumbles.

“I am very tired,” she says firmly. “And I didn’t expect this assignment.”

“With me?” he asks.

“At all,” she admits. "I don't know why they picked me."

He shifts in his seat and breathes out, then says, “Because all you do is work. You’ve never been late, never complained.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad I’ve been convenient,” she says lightly, pulling into the agency’s lot and into her allotted parking space. She feels Wolfgang’s gaze on her as she reaches to pull her keys from the ignition, so she turns her head and asks in a soft, defeated tone, “Yes?”

He glances down and shakes his head.

She knows from his expression that he is withholding a caustic reply; his jaw is tense, his nostrils slightly flared, and his eyes contain a cold, bright light that she notices only when he’s angry or afraid.

She watches him for a moment, considering a reply; she feels a touch of guilt for her aloof attitude, but this melts away quickly when she reminds herself how he treated her, and she throws the car door open. She steps out, tugs her coat tighter around herself, and waits for him to follow so she can lock the doors.

But when he stands up, he grips the top of the door and turns to her. “Convenient?” he asks, softer than she expected. “You’re too thorough, you’re too cautious, every investigation you open takes twice as long as it should.” He lets out a noise between a laugh and scoff, then slams the door. “You’re not convenient, Kala. That’s why you think they picked you? They picked you to contain me, and they picked me to get this done on time.”

Then he walks away, leaving her slightly open-mouthed, her hand still poised on the door latch.

***

Wolfgang doesn’t enter his office once inside, a bit shaken by his own words, and chooses instead to go to the coffee bar. He orders a double doppio and hangs by the window while he waits, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, still chilled from the rain.

He is typically more measured, more reserved, and he had promised himself last night, over a beer with Felix, that he would remain stoic with Kala. He knows that she has every right to be cold, but he expected her to regard him with simple disinterest. He thought six months would soften her edges enough that they could maintain civility, but now he is unsure -- her eyes impart the same hurt and betrayal that they did on that frosty March morning.

He breathes out heavily and takes his drink from the pick-up counter, then considers getting her some tea and a sandwich -- she was clearly awake all night -- but he knows that she will interpret this as inappropriate. She doesn’t want to be friends. He made sure of that.

He pulls his gaze away from the deli case and walks into the lobby, sipping his coffee as he waits for the elevator. The doors have just slid open when Felix skids alongside him, balancing several large case files, his ankle stuck out to keep the doors open.

“Fuck, man, fucking Maliki or whatever the fuck his--”

“Felix,” says Wolfgang tiredly, taking the file that is about to fall. He looks over his friend -- bags under his eyes that rival a raccoon’s bandit markings, hair stuck in a greasy wave -- and raises his eyebrows slightly. “You look like shit.”

“I was up at four,” explains Felix. “The Jonas guy is going to work us into the grave, you know that right? They need more than one me for this, apparently they picked me because of the Hizbollah shit I did last year, so apparently we’re going through the usual channels instead exploring new bad actors, and apparently--” He lowers his voice as a woman joins them in the lift. “--apparently the Jonas guy and Kala met with the Chancellor, so we’re really in the shit now.”

Wolfgang turns. “Kala met with the Chancellor?”

“Yeah, and she declared a state of emergency by the way." Felix laughs. "Damn, Kala's hot shit now, youngest ever apparently -- how’s that going by the way? Have you seen her since last night? She still wish you were dead?”

“How much Adderall have you had today?” deflects Wolfgang.

“Uh, three, I think,” replies Felix. “Yeah, three.”

Wolfgang nods as the doors open at their floor. “You have a drug problem.”

Felix fumbles his sliding stack of files and presses the handicap button on the wall with his knee to open the door to their department. “So? Have you seen her?”

“Yes,” Wolfgang manages.

“Hey, perk up, at least she’s eye candy unlike the rest of the dream team. Candy with like, a fucking cyanide center, but you’ve always been into that. Of course the other guys on the team are into her too so you should probably, like, express how you’ve been there, done that, so they’re intimidated--”

Wolfgang looks at him, perturbed. “This year will be bad enough without you telling me to sexually harass my ex-girlfriend.”

“I’m not telling you to sexually harass her!”

“Christ,” says Wolfgang, opening the door to his office. “I’m not telling everyone we used to sleep together--”

“Good choice.”   
“Total power move, though--”

Kala and Felix’s voice overlap. Wolfgang stops dead, looking to his left at Kala, whose arms are crossed so tightly he doubts they will ever unlatch.

“Oh, shit,” sighs Felix.

“Why are you here?” asks Wolfgang quietly.

She raises her eyebrows. “Oh, I was on my way to HR, actually--”

Wolfgang tosses the file he’s holding onto his desk, losing patience. “What do you want?”

“Here,” says Kala, slightly shrill, shoving a bag with a large metal item inside into his hands. “You said you wanted to examine the casings from last night. I checked this out of the evidence locker for you.”

“I could have done that myself,” he replies.

“You could say thank you!”

“I cannot fucking believe I’m stuck with you two,” mumbles Felix.

“Yes, the feeling is mutual,” says Kala quietly, and the three of them don’t speak for a moment, all uncomfortable.

Wolfgang had hoped he and Kala wouldn’t fall into a pattern of open hostility, but it appears she didn’t appreciate his comment at the car; he resigns himself to a rocky first month; he reminds himself that he deserves her attitude, and she doesn’t deserve his remarks -- though he’s unsure if he’ll be able to stay quiet; he’s never been able to contain his temper, especially with her.

He recalls a midnight argument that ended when Kala finally shouted, “Why is it only ever me? Why don’t you treat anyone else like this?” He had taken a moment, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. _Because you’re worth fighting with. Anyone else, I’d just walk away._ She had stood perfectly still, tears silently slipping from her eyes, and then she took her purse from the hook by the door and didn’t appear again until morning.

Perhaps she thought _you’re worth fighting with_ was not an acceptable equivalent to _I love you_. Maybe she simply found this to be a poor justification for starting a beastly argument. Or maybe she was out of words, out of breath, and finally out of love.

He’s unsure to this day why she didn’t respond.

“I will be in the laboratory,” she says quietly, glancing at him and Felix before slipping out of the office.

***

That evening, Wolfgang takes two drinks from the barista at the hospital cafeteria and starts towards the oncology department. He spent the day questioning half his department about the use of aluminum as a projectile in recent bombings, both here and in the rest of Europe, and when his watch dinged at 18:00, he swore under his breath and texted his mother that he would be late.

He glances at the room numbers as he walks, garnering a few wary looks from nurses since he is still in his uniform, still on duty, and still carrying. He dispels their questioning gazes with a quick, charming smile, and turns into his mom’s room.

Irina doesn’t notice him at first, reading a magazine in her padded chemotherapy chair, so he sets the tea down by her elbow. She inhales in surprise, then grins at him and waves, careful not to lift her arm too high and disrupt the IV. He smiles but casts his eyes down, teeth clenched, and sits in one of the visitor’s chairs.

“Hi, mom.”

Irina reaches to take his hand. “You look tired.”

He nods dully and looks at her, then squeezes her hand hard. “How are you?”

She tucks her thinning hair behind one ear and forces another smile, but then she shrugs and breathes out, head tilted. “I’m tired too.” She squeezes his hand back, then lets him go and picks up her tea. “Felix says you have a new assignment?”

“Fuck,” says Wolfgang in mild annoyance. “Yes.”

Irina’s eyes widen when he doesn’t elaborate. “Yes? So?”

“The bombings,” he tells her reluctantly.

She nods, frowning, and goes on, “And he says you have an interesting partner?”

Wolfgang laughs to himself, soft and rough, and swears again. “I’ll kill him.”

“So?” repeats Irina, almost teasing, her lively fingers gesturing around her tea.

He looks up at her dark brows, bloodshot eyes, her hair like strands of wheat left too long to dry; his jaw tenses again. He breathes out and says softly, “It’s Kala, mom, but we aren’t--”

“Wolfgang!”

“--we aren’t talking, it’s professional--”

“Wolfgang,” she repeats in a whisper, shaking his arm.

“It’s nothing,” he says flatly, then breaks away to drink his coffee. “Even if I wanted it to be.”

Irina sighs, but she cups his face briefly and purses her lips. “How is she?”

“The same,” he replies.

Irina seems to hesitate on the edge of another question, or an admonishment, but when she finally speaks, all she says is, “Is the job safe for you, are you staying in Berlin this time?”

_So far_ , he thinks to himself, but he nods. “Yeah, mama.” He smiles to reassure her. “It’s a good assignment.”

“More money?” she guesses.

He shakes his head. “Not now, but...” He smiles more genuinely and nods again. “It’s a step up, yeah.”

She raises her mug of tea and grins. “Well, then good.” They clink glasses and both chuckle before drinking, and she continues quietly, “But don’t work too hard.”

He merely raises his eyebrows, leaning back, and takes another drink of coffee.

She rolls her eyes at this response and he smirks; his expression fades quickly, however, when he looks back to her ashen skin and the tubes in her arm. She opens her mouth, catching his gaze, but quickly shakes her head. She reaches to pat his arm and squeezes it, then exhales.

“You don’t always have to be here,” she tells him.

“I want to be here,” he replies.

She looks up at her IV bag and smiles faintly. “I’m not so scared of it all now, you know, I’m getting used to it.”

He shrugs and says gruffly, “Yeah, well, you’re still stuck with me.”

She smiles and shakes her head, and he smiles too, more softly, then opens his phone to show her the latest pictures of Moose. He wouldn’t take pictures if she didn’t want to see them, but as it is, Moose takes up most of his gallery.

She slides through the photos, remarking on the dog’s expressions and moods, and he rests his elbows on his knees, smiling when he must, but whenever her gaze is distracted by the phone, he presses his teeth together hard and reminds himself to breathe.

***

Kala adjusts her glasses as she peers through a microscope at the shell of one of the explosives, alone in the lab. She takes hasty notes in Hindi as she studies the materials and keeps her breathing even so the microscope doesn’t vibrate in the slightest.

She has examined what was left of the bombs from three sites now, with no remarkable findings; they are consistent with each other and with what she has seen before. The shells and casings give no hint about the anomaly of the aluminum at the scene, but she didn’t expect them to -- to gain insight into that, she’ll have to examine one of the projectiles, and the ones gathered from the scene are in the evidence locker.

Jonas promised her a key to this for work after-hours, but when she sought him out earlier, she found that he had gone home.

She straightens up from the microscope and looks across the lab; the light in the office next to her goes out, the last overtimer leaving, and shadows shift across the computers and flasks on the counter. Kala’s wrists soften and she lets her breath out, unsure if she should continue her research; she doesn’t need another sleepless night, but the aluminum plagues her.

Wolfgang used to stay up for her. She would wander into his apartment at two in the morning, and he would look up from the couch; for a man with his temper and impatience, he was incredibly consistent; he looked identical every night, a book in his hand, a glass of forgotten scotch on the table.

Sometimes he would ask her why he should stay with a woman he barely sees, and she would roll her eyes and sit on his lap; other times he wouldn’t speak at all, holding her, and she would quietly recount her day; occasionally he would simply lift her in his arms and toss her onto the bed, which would provoke laughter or desire, depending on the day.

Kala’s fingers tighten on the microscope and she bites her bottom lip. She hasn’t spent this much time with Wolfgang in months, and she knew the moment she saw him last night that a flood of unwanted memories was inevitable; she drowned them with work and research all day, but now, alone in the lab with nothing left to study, the images flow unimpeded.

She moves her hand along the papers next to the microscope and turns her palm up, fingers twitching; she closes her eyes, remembering the first time he touched her, a brush of his fingers on her palm as he took a dinner mint from her; she doubts he remembers this, but she does, because it left her tingling.

She opens her eyes and looks at her hand, curling her fingers slightly, and swallows.

_“Do you have the time?” asks the man next to her in the audience, leaning slightly closer so he can keep his voice down._

_She looks at her watch and whispers the time, then glances at him. She holds her breath at his handsome profile and he catches her eyes for a mere second, then turns his attention back to the presentation about counterproliferation. She blinks and copies him, stiffer than she was a moment ago, and her focus drifts as the speaker drones about an esoteric treaty._

_She feels the man lean closer again after a moment. “Do you have anything I can kill myself with?”_

_She hastily presses her hand to her mouth to keep her laughter inaudible._

_“I have a pen,” she replies._

_“I’ll keep that in mind if I get desperate,” he says._

_Someone behind them shushes them. Kala crosses her legs, buzzing with strange excitement, and looks again at the man next to her. She searches for a witty response, uncharacteristically unconcerned about disrupting the presentation._

_“I work in forensics, I have no idea why I’m here,” she tells him._

_“I’m a detective, same,” he mutters._

_“I don’t know why these conferences are required at all,” she adds._

_He shakes his head, smirking, the low light casting a prominent shadow across his cheek. “It’s because our director is an asshole.”_

_“Oh, he is--” she says, slightly louder before she catches herself. “He --” She doesn’t know why she’s sharing this. “He...grabbed my ass once in the elevator.”_

_The man next to her struggles to contain laughter. “Holy shit. I’m sorry about that.”_

_“Can you believe that?” she complains._

_The person behind them shushes them again and they look at each other with raised eyebrows._

_“Oops,” whispers Kala._

_But he turns to the person. “Can’t you see we’re having a conversation?”_

_“Have it somewhere else!”_

_Kala’s eyes widen and she covers her mouth again, laughing. The man turns back to her, yet closer, and smiles with a hint of mischief._

_“Listen,” he says in a deep tone. “This hotel has a bar on the top floor. Meet me there.”_

_Kala looks at him in surprise, but she murmurs, “I suppose that’s better than killing ourselves with a pen.”_

_He nods. “That seems messy.”_

_“Very messy,” she agrees._

_They continue to look at each other, balanced, and then she drops her head into her hand and grins._

_She nods. “Okay.”_

To this day, Kala doesn’t understand why she agreed to get a drink with him in the middle of a presentation; the move was so unlike her, especially then, when she was new to the agency, fixated on success and acceptance. But something about him drew her in, an irresistible force beyond her control. They talked into the night and she found that he was guarded and watchful, but not completely unwilling to share; she talked more than he did by far, but what he did say was potent and fascinating to her; she wanted to drink him in, absorb his essence, so that she could remember him the way she might remembering skydiving, eating a hot pepper whole, watching a blood moon in the bitter cold. His intensity was an anomaly in her routine.

She considered giving him her number that night -- she even considered going to his room for a “drink” -- but at midnight, sitting outside the hotel, both eating the greasiest, best falafel in the city, she decided to let the universe bring them together for a second time; she decided that was the best way to determine the authenticity of their connection.

When she was transferred to Berlin two weeks later and saw him in the hall, she knew all she needed to.

_“Kala,” he said._

_“You remembered me,” she replied feebly._

_He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”_

***

Wolfgang walks his mother home from the hospital after her treatment; he found her an apartment close enough that she would never need a car, convenient on the many occasions that his job conflicts with her appointments. She insisted she could ride the bus, the train, that he shouldn’t spend his money on her for a new place, but he understood the doctors more clearly than she did, and he knew the rental costs would be temporary.

After she assures him that she has ingredients for dinner, he returns outside, tempted to walk home despite the unseasonable cold. The sun has set, peach light breaking through the uneven horizon of apartments, trees, and street signs, and he lights a cigarette as he starts north toward the canal.

He passes the tour buses by the Tiergarten, the trees growing denser, and brushes his thumb on the filter of his cigarette so the ash falls in the ice.

He thinks of Kala more often than he would be willing to admit to her, most of his memories unbidden, on sleepless nights or numbing train rides, on walks like these, when the cold leaves the city quiet.

_“Do you think the ceiling’s going to cave in?” he mumbles, passing a cigarette to Kala, both of them sticky with sweat, the blankets long ago tossed onto the floor._

_She surveys the water damage on the ceiling above them and blows a puff of smoke. “It could.” She turns and kisses his cheek, a wet, playful kiss with a smile at the end of it. “You should find a new apartment.” She passes the cigarette back. “Or you could spend more time at my place.”_

_“Your place doesn’t have the charm,” he replies, holding back laughter._

_She laughs and turns her leg over his waist, pressing closer, her head nuzzled under his chin. He smokes, closing his eyes, then kisses her between her brows. She moves her hand along his chest and pinches his ear affectionately, and he chuckles, glances at her through half-open eyes, and gives the cigarette back._

_She sits up, and his hand slips from her shoulder, along the side of her breast, and settles on top of her thigh. She smiles and tilts her head as she takes a drag, and he presses his fingers into her skin. They look at each other -- he lasts longer, she drops her gaze, shy -- and then he picks up her silver cigarette case from the sheets, studying it._

_He taps the hummingbird. “You remind me of these.”_

_She breathes out a long stream of smoke. “What?”_

_“That’s what you’re like,” he goes on. “You’re...gorgeous and brave and dependent on sugar...” He pauses with a slight smile. “And you’re...”_

_He shakes his head and trails off. She takes the case from him with gentle fingers._

_“It was my grandmother’s. She used it for sewing supplies.” Then she looks at him_ , _as if his words just now reached her, and her eyes soften. “And I’m what?”_

_He studies her, unsure which word to use. “You never stop, babe, you never get tired.”_

_She glances down, but she nods, smiling. “I’ve always known what I wanted.” She pauses. “Do you like hummingbirds?”_

_“I love them,” he says, too serious._

_Then a drop of water falls from the ceiling. They both freeze, staring at each other, and rush out of bed. They regard the splotchy ceiling with concern and dislike._

_“Couch?” murmurs Kala, reaching for her robe._

_He nods. “Couch.”_

It’s strange now to consider how good it once was, how effortless; they made sense together, and they both knew it; for the first six months, they didn’t fight; for the first six months, they mixed like rivers converging, and he remembers her open-mouthed, red-lipped laugh, sweeter than the sound of bells and rain, her whispered affirmations that she was his and he was hers when they were alone together, the wild, breathless wrestling matches over something stupid like the remote or the last chocolate in the box.

It was thoughtless in the best way. Spontaneous, uncomplicated, hot.

She was the first woman he felt anything close to that for, and he knows now that the intensity scared and confused him. He wanted her, just her, and this lure of commitment was too opposed to his typical desires to accept without a fight. He knows he grew distant -- he intended to. And he knows the door to the past is closed -- he meant it to be.

But he didn’t anticipate working a case with her. He supposes he always knew it was possible, but the possibility was never something he considered, and something he certainly did not prepare for. It’s strange to see her now -- she’s like a ghost, but this ghost has teeth. This ghost remembers the final two months, when the simplest conversations were puzzles with pitfalls.

He complicated her; the end was on him, and he knows that, but he doubts she will ever understand how conflicted he was. He doubts she knows that he was debating between asking her to marry her and leaving her, but as opposite as the choices might seem, they presented very similarly to him -- both were a form of surrender, and that is something he has never been comfortable with.

He realized later, when he was alone, that surrender is not always cowardly; and he began to accept that, often, refusing to choose is the only truly cowardly choice. This choice is a surrender of the worst kind. A refusal to face fear.

True, his mother got sick; true, her father was dying. The weight of their lives together was suddenly debilitating. He pictured the earth without gravity often at night in those last months, wondering if it would implode like a bubble popping, if it would crumple like a gum wrapper, or if it would melt and spill into nothingness.

He thought the weight would lessen if he left her, faced only with his own problems; he was wrong but it was too late, and now as he walks along the familiar route to headquarters, he huffs coldly at himself for believing he only had two choices -- total commitment or total abandonment.

He could have talked to her. How simple, how stupidly simple. But he’s dealt in rough binaries for as long as he can remember.

***

Kala rubs her eyes, exhausted -- so exhausted, in fact, that she is strangely hyper. She makes her way from her dark office through the dark hall to the pitch-black basement, and chases the tiny light and the end of the endless hall to the evidence locker, squinting. She is shocked to see a guard, a serenely handsome black man with one earbud in, his knee bouncing to his music. The locker is typically left unguarded, though locked, after hours.

She smiles at the guard, who looks at her in complete surprise.

“Hello,” she says, voice a bit too breathy; she digs in her pocket for her badge, removed a while ago from her lapel. She presents it and the guard nods, but instead of simply going inside, she pauses. “Uh -- when did we hire a night guard?”

The man grins good-naturedly and says in a lilting Kenyan accent, “Just today.”

Kala smiles unsurely and nods, then goes into what they all call the locker, though it resembles a warehouse. She flutters her fingers along the boxes that correspond to the numbers on her case file, then seizes on the one labeled _projectiles, shrapnel_. She balances the box under her left arm and walks out of the locker, nodding at the guard.

The contents of the box are mostly metal, very heavy, and she struggles down the hall to the elevator, rocking from side to side as the weight shifts. When the elevator doors part on her floor, she stops at the sight of Wolfgang, slightly damp from the fitful rain; he looks haunted, hollow, and his voice is a direct echo of the past when he speaks.

It’s tired, apologetic, and undecided. “Hey.”

Her fingers strain on the handholds of the box. “Hello.”

“I thought you’d still be here,” he says.

She nods, nervous where this could lead. “I’m --” She steadies herself and stands straighter. “I am about to look at some of the projectiles, if you -- if you want to see too.”

He agrees and she steps out of the lift. She wants to question why he came back to work, but she assumes she will find out in due time, so she doesn’t say anything more for now. She lifts the box higher, lips tight together with the effort, and he reaches to take it from her; she eyes him, but hands it over with a quiet word of thanks.

She wants to volunteer what she has learned so far from examining the casings, but she knows her “work” voice annoys him -- and she knows any other voice will open too many possibilities -- so she doesn’t speak at all.

They walk together into the forensics division. The lab is blue and green from the lights on the spectroscopy, chromatography, histology, and pathology equipment, the electricity buzzing just audibly, so clean that the cleanliness itself is a scent.

Kala clicks on the lights and Wolfgang sets the box on a free space of counter.

“How did you get this?” he asks in a rough, tired tone.

“They hired a night guard,” she replies, grasping the bag nearest the surface in the box. She points to an old, extra microscope, unplugged, and hurries to put a specimen under her own, pristine microscope. “Use that if you want.”

But as usual, he observes the whole object, and she garners details. They turn to each other at the same time after a quiet fifteen minutes, both discarding identical scraps, one after the other; then Kala holds up an anomaly -- a misshapen, shiny speck of steel and silicone.

“Is this scrap metal from a computer?” she murmurs, studying the chipped edge of a circuit board.

He takes the piece from her hand; he isn’t as versed in this as she is, but he has enough experience to stiffen in confusion and concern.

“I want to know the proportion. How many projectiles are here?”

“From all the attacks or--”

“Yes.”

“Nearly three thousand.”

“And how many are like these?” he asks, twisting the odd scrap in his fingers.

“I don’t know the final numbers but--” She hesitates. “Almost none.”

He nods. “And how many were in the bodies found at the scenes?”

“Total? Another thousand,” she answers. “But I haven’t heard that they found any like that, not in the bodies.”

She watches him as he thinks, transported from the lab to a foggy memory, his fingers flipping through coffee-stained case-files, papers spread across their bed like islands, or icebergs, she hadn’t decided yet. She touched their edges, toyed with them and dog-eared them until he held her restive hand down.

She liked to watch him work, and he liked the same. Sometimes they talked about the difference and the strange similarity of their work. He saw the bodies, she saw the pictures; neither of them was sure which image was more sinister, the smell and sickness of the scene or the eternal documentation of an isolated moment of rage.

It was a separate yet parallel vision; both of them understood that they saw what most never saw, but they saw it through such different lenses that their opinions never quite met. Kala suggested he was too close to the cases he worked, and he suggested she was too distant; both of them admitted, if only to themselves, that this was correct.

“I haven’t gone to any morgue yet,” Kala says dully, knowing what is about to be required of her. “But...but the medical examiners always say more in person than they do in reports and the bodies...they speak for themselves.”

“It could be nothing,” he mumbles, looking at the speck in his hand.

“It could be something,” she replies, echoing the conversation they had whenever he was unsure about an investigation.

His mouth twitches. “You’re always...”

His hand appears before her in the stark light as if new, the wrinkles of his palm cradling the small, suddenly fearsome scrap of metal.

“More optimistic,” she guesses quietly.

But she shakes his head. “No.” He tightens his jaw, forming a strange and pained smile. “No, Kala, you’re always right.”

She softens, surprised by this. “Do you--” She stops herself. “You think this is something?”

He nods, though she senses he doesn’t want to. “I do.”

“I have a friend at one of the hospitals that responded to the bombing,” she says after a moment of discordant consideration; it would be easy to go home, to avoid time alone with him, but she wants to be alone with herself less than she wants to be alone with him. “I can make a call.”

He nods.

Sometimes she is impressed by his reserve, and sometimes she is annoyed by it. She wants a response as much as she doesn’t, and she suspects he wants to speak as much as he doesn’t. It leaves them both on a cliff edge.

She calls her friend, Dr. Caplan, and breathes out in relief when she answers. She gets the green light to come to the morgue in the hospital near here, and she pockets her phone, looking at Wolfgang with equal reluctance and relief.

“I don’t know if we have clearance for this but--”

“Yeah,” he interrupts dully, not hearing her, moving to the door.

***

After a short, silent drive, Wolfgang finds himself in the hospital he left only an hour ago. He walks the familiar halls with Kala, both of them quiet, studying each other with furtive glances. She appears more exhausted than ever, and preoccupied with an indistinct fear; he senses that she shares his intuition about the case.

“Through here,” he murmurs when Kala falters as the hall splits in two directions.

She looks at him, wary. “How did you know that?”

He doesn’t want to expose his familiarity with this hospital -- he never told her about his mother -- so he lies. “I came here last week for a case.”

She nods, still a bit unsure. They walk together in silence again, skirting nurses and doctors, and finally turn into a chilly, unoccupied hall on the basement floor. Kala shows her badge to a guard, who nods, and she and Wolfgang continue through a large door into the morgue lobby, where a receptionist looks at them wearily.

“I called ahead,” says Kala as she reaches the desk, badge still in her hand.

The receptionist stares at her, then plunks a button on her desk so the door to their left swings open.

“Called ahead,” murmurs Wolfgang as they walk through it.

“I thought it was relevant,” snips Kala.

“It’s a morgue,” he replies. “Not a restaurant.”

She bristles but doesn’t answer, walking ahead of him into a large, tiled room with several autopsy tables and a wall of refrigerated drawers. Dr. Caplan is hunched at one of the tables, filling out some paperwork, the sapphire strands of her dreds shining in the surgical lights. She looks up at them with a tired smile, then holds still.

“Oh,” she says. “Wolfgang, uh. Hi.” She looks at Kala. “I didn’t know you two got back together.”

“Oh, we didn’t,” says Kala. “We’re assigned to this case together.”

“Thank God,” says Amanita, adding after a reflective pause, “No offense.”

“Oh, none taken,” replies Kala brightly.

Wolfgang glances down, arms folded, waiting. Amanita walks around the table and yanks one of the drawers open, then pulls out a metal stretcher, revealing a sheet-covered body. She rests her hands on the stretcher for a moment and Wolfgang feels Kala grow restless and sympathetic beside him.

“How...how has today been?” she murmurs at Amanita.

Amanita clicks her nails gently on the stretcher. “Oh, it’s been...” She nods and her voice weakens. “You know. About what you’d think.” She clears her throat and turns. “You said you wanted to see one of the bodies that has been through autopsy?”

Kala nods and steps forward. “Yes, that’s...” She exhales and nods. “Yes.”

Wolfgang looks at her in concern, lifting his hand to rub her back before remembering himself. He sees that Amanita saw this gesture, and he quickly looks down and tenses his fingers. He steps even with Kala along the stretcher and Amanita pulls the sheet down from the body.

Kala breathes out shakily and he presses his teeth tight.

“The injuries are typical...blast lung, fractures, burns, interstitial pneumonitis... of course all the lacerations,” says Amanita. “Most of the shrapnel was very small and light...very few exit wounds meaning most of it didn’t make it through the body...ordinarily we would try to excise all of it...but in this case, that would be too time-consuming so we’ll leave that to the morticians.”

“So the shrapnel will just be left in the bodies?” asks Kala.

Amanita nods. “Yeah, at least while they’re here in the morgue.”

Kala hums, sweeping her eyes over the body, and then she looks at Wolfgang, debating. He nods softly so she turns to Amanita.

“Did you find any unusual shrapnel? Anything electronic?”

“Electronic?” says Amanita in surprise. “No, nothing like that.”

Kala hesitates, but pulls the steel shrapnel from her pocket and hands it to Amanita, who squints in fascination and turns it over in her thin fingers.

“Weird,” she says fervently. “Something like this would have gone deeper into a body than the shrapnel I’ve seen so far. Potentially could have been missed at autopsy. What are you guys thinking? They sourced this from...what, old computer parts?”

“Not old,” says Wolfgang cautiously.

“That’s what’s strange,” adds Kala. “You haven’t seen anything similar to that?”

Amanita turns her lips down, still staring at the scrap. “No. Sorry.”

Kala hums in disappointment and looks at Wolfgang again, her dark brows wrinkled, her eyes distant; he knows the look -- she’s withdrawing into her thoughts.

“What?” he asks her quietly.

“Maybe...maybe it is just an anomaly,” she replies. “An exception, random.”

This doesn’t settle well with him, so he doesn’t respond immediately. He glances at the scrap in Amanita’s hand and a discomfiting thought flits through his mind. _What if it broke off from a larger device?_

“Have you x-rayed any of these bodies?” he asks before he can help himself.

Kala whips her gaze back in his direction, frowning more seriously than she was a moment ago, and Amanita squints.

“We...don’t tend to do that,” she replies.

“Can you?” he presses.

“I’d have to get permission from radiology. Pretty unorthodox to x-ray a corpse. Though there is one crazy motherfucker in that department. I could talk to him.”

“Tonight?” he asks Amanita.

“No way, sorry,” says Amanita.

“Why not?” he demands.

“Wolfgang,” murmurs Kala, her eyes still intense.

He exhales in annoyance. “Nevermind. Tomorrow. You should x-ray all of them.”

“All of them?” Amanita asks.

Kala sighs. “Wolfgang, what--”

“Yes, all of them,” he says, talking over her. “Metal shows up well on an x-ray, what about plastic?”

“Uh, less well -- look, we’ve got over twenty victims here, and we have patients who are still alive who need x-rays, there’s a queue--”

“CT uses more radiation, so prioritize pregnant women and children for x-rays and CT everyone else so the machine is free--”

“CT scans and x-rays have different purposes, we can’t just CT everyone who needs x-rays--”

“CT scans pick up everything and more than an x-ray does,” he says shortly. “The only disadvantage is the radiation.”

“Wolfgang, God, she’s a doctor!” sighs Kala.

“Oh, don’t worry,” says Amanita. “This isn’t even the first time today that a straight white guy tried to explain something to me.”

He ignores them. “Do you have a portable x-ray machine that you could bring down here?”

“Maybe if you tell me why you’re so interested in x-raying all of these bodies, I’ll tell you,” replies Amanita.

He breathes out hard through his nose, glancing down. “I want to see how many of the projectiles like those--” he eyes the scrap “ -- made it into the bodies.”

Amanita glances at Kala for guidance, then says slowly, “Look, there’s so much metal in these bodies, differentiating everything could be a real bitch. But...” She tilts her head at the scrap. “Aluminum is less dense than steel or whatever this is. So it’s worth a shot. But convincing radiology that this is worth their time will be tricky.”

He gestures, annoyed. “What could be more important than this?”

“God, do you hear yourself?” asks Kala.

He turns to her, eyes flashing, but she continues before he can speak.

“No one you care about died in the bombings,” she snaps. “Which means this is a puzzle for you, it’s a distraction. That’s what your cases always are.”

“Oof, who thought pairing you two up was a good idea?” mumbles Amanita, and they both soften, turning away from each other. “Look,” she goes on after a moment. “I’ll ask radiology about this tomorrow and get back to you. Wouldn’t hurt if you got your boss to call and put in a word. And that’s a no on the portable x-ray.” She gestures at the body. “Are you satisfied?”

“Yeah,” Wolfgang mumbles, turning around, hands on his hips.

“Yes,” Kala quietly confirms.

“Great,” says Amanita, a bit irked, and she slides the body back into the drawer.

“I’m sorry,” adds Kala.

“Don’t apologize for him,” replies Amanita. “Don’t worry about it.”

Wolfgang snorts and his hands fall by his sides. He exits the morgue without waiting for Kala and the door swings shut with a crack. He stalks down the hallway, fishing in his pocket for a cigarette, anxious to get outside. He makes it to the nearest exit, which opens to a courtyard, by the time he hears Kala behind him.

He breathes out, steeling himself, and goes into the courtyard in front of her.

He lights his cigarette, feigning indifference. “Go home, Kala--”

She throws the door wider to follow him out and shouts, “What is wrong with you?"

He keeps his back to her and shakes his head, breathing out the smoke.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle this!” she goes on, voice strident and carrying in the cold air. “I knew you would act like a child!”

“Calm down--”

“Oh, fuck you!” she whispers, starting to cry.

He turns around, staggered -- he’s never heard her say this word, and he did not expect a response nearly this severe for his behavior, which was nothing unusual. He stares at her, the filter of the cigarette crushed between his thumb and index finger, and the smoke floats in the frozen air between them. She hangs her head and hugs herself, letting out a gasping, breathy sob, and his eyes dart from her to the exit sign.

He searches for a response, but her words ring.

“Do you hate me now? Is that it?” she asks him. “You want to make it more difficult than it has to be because you want to punish me? What is it?”

He shakes his head very slowly, shaken.

“Do you want me to quit?” she goes on. “Do you want this case for yourself?”

“No, I--”

“Why is this so hard for you?” she whispers, wiping her eyes as the tears continue to pour. “I -- I don’t understand you! I don’t understand what happened to you! You weren’t like this when we met.”

“Yes, I was,” he says dully.

“You weren’t!” she insists. “You _weren’t_ , Wolfgang. I loved you! I loved you so much.” She shakes her head and sniffles, then gestures at him. “I wouldn’t have fallen in love with this man.” Her voice breaks. “I couldn’t have.”

“You did,” he replies, pocketing the burned-out cigarette

“You changed!” she yells. “You--”

“You want to believe that so you can forgive yourself for getting involved with me,” he interrupts.

She stares at him with the empty, shattered gaze he recognizes well from their last weeks together. She lets her tears fall unimpeded for a moment and he glances down. He knows he can’t leave her like this, but he has nothing else to say.

“I am not the one who needs forgiveness,” she finally whispers.

“No,” he agrees, and then he murmurs, “Why didn’t you answer me that night? When you asked me why I treated you like shit?”

“Because I didn’t believe you.”

He isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. He looks up. “What?”

“I didn’t believe you,” she repeats, unequivocal. “You didn’t treat me worse than everyone else because you loved me more than everyone else. You treated me like that because you didn’t think I would leave you.”

“No,” he replies.

She laughs humorlessly and dries her eyes again. “Yes.”

“I’ve fought with every girlfriend I’ve ever had,” he says angrily, stepping closer to her. “I know what I’m like, Kala, I know that. No one can live with me. Of course we fought, but it was worse with you than with anyone else because I didn’t want to quit.”

She swallows. “Until you did.”

They look at each other, both stiff and cold. She folds her arms tightly, eyes glassy and glowing in the light from the hall; he looks at his boots, sick to his stomach.

“I didn’t want to,” he says, very quiet.

“Then why did you?” she asks.

He forces himself to look at her, and he knows he owes her honesty if he wants the investigation to survive. “I was scared.”

“What were you scared of?” she asks.

“I never loved anybody as much as you, Kala,” he tells her.

“You loved me so much,” she says in a soft, shaking voice, “that you left when my father was in the hospital? You loved me so much that you made me go through that alone?”

He winces. “I--”

“I will see you at work,” she says primly, brushing past him into the hospital.

The door clicks shut. He is left alone in the dark courtyard, which is isolated from the city, as silent as the bottom of a swimming pool.

He breathes out slowly. “ _Fuck_.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bombing investigation grows darker. Kala and Wolfgang grapple with old memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. I feel awful that I started this fic and immediately abandoned it, but the timing was terrible. The storyline about Irina getting sick got way too close to home for me this Spring. I couldn't handle writing about it for quite a while, but things have gotten a bit better for now.
> 
> Sorry folks. I'll be more consistent this summer!! <3

Wolfgang remembers the last time he asked his mom for advice.

He was twelve, shaken by boys at school who told him his dad must have left when he was little because he was unwanted. After all, they had sneered, who would want him? He responded without showing the slightest hint of hurt, and they came off looking worse than he did, but when he got home that night he admitted what had happened -- and he asked, for the first fearful time, why his father did leave. 

Irina was honest; she echoed what the boys teased about -- “he didn’t want a child, mausi” -- but added something that made Wolfgang feel better: “but that was because of him and not because of us.” He believed her. She assured him, while flinchingly dabbing at his bloody nose, that he could ask her anything, any time; he nodded but didn’t appeal to her again despite the comfort he gained from this experience.

By that age, he felt practically grown; he had always taken care of her, or told himself that he had to, and he didn’t feel it was right to bother her with complaints.

Now, he is grown; now, he does truly take care of her. But as he passes her apartment on his slow walk from the hospital, he stops. He wants, for the first time in fifteen years, to ask for an explanation -- one, he admits, she’s less qualified to give. He wants to ask about Kala. He wants to know if there is anything he can do.

He steps off the sidewalk to give a bicycle the room to pass, hesitating -- her light is on, a dim orange glow by the window.

He taught himself to recognize her apartment, four up, ten over, so that he could check on her at a passing glance. If the light was on after 20:00, she was having a good night. If not, he would make a point to call in the morning. When she got sick, he incorporated this street into his route home from work. Kala asked him why, and he muttered about traffic; she didn’t ask the string of impatient questions he would have had he been in her position, and she didn’t catch his furtive glance at the apartment where he had just moved his mother.

He checks his watch, nearly 21:30, and forces himself to turn towards the building. He tells himself he can pass it off as a loving, if paranoid gesture -- if he reaches the door and realizes he doesn’t want to talk, he can say he was merely checking on her.

But when she opens her door a moment later, he doesn’t say this.

“Mom, you know I told you to use the--” He pauses in frustration. “The slide lock. Don’t open the door until you look through the gap.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know it’s you. Who else would it be?”

He raises his eyebrows but she lifts both her hands.

“I know how many stories you have, I know,” she says, tired but warm. She leaves the door wide for him and walks back into the flat, surprising him when she goes to the kitchen. “I have Käsespätzle, you look like you haven’t eaten all day.”

He shuts and locks the door, softening at the smell of the food. He gives a slight, sad smile and shakes the doorknob to double check it, then calls a quiet affirmation to her and continues into the kitchen.

“Surprised you’re up,” he admits.

“What happened with Kala?” she asks, wiping up the counter.

He rankles. "Nothing."

She starts to laugh. “Oh, something did."

Wolfgang assumed, until he was a teenager, that he got his investigative qualities from the father he never met, but then Irina surprised him -- she knew when he snuck out, who he was with, if there was a girl involved, and details far beyond that. He hated it at the time, but he always respected it.

He joins her in the kitchen and takes a spoon from the drawer, absently stirring the now-cold Käsespätzle. She twists the stove dial and the flame sparks under the pan.

He rubs the back of his head. “I don’t know what to do.”

Irina turns towards him and takes the spoon from him, stirring with more vigor. “What happened?”

“We got in a fight,” he admits.

“About?” asks Irina.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “I was being an ass but she’s used to that.” He pauses, fiddling with the grab-bar on the oven. “She...” He stops again. “She was really angry. She swore at me. I can’t remember her ever doing that.”

Irina watches him cautiously, then sidesteps to the fridge and takes out a beer for him. She uncaps it with an opener kept by the red wine, and he gives a half-smile as he takes a sip.

“You aren’t supposed to drink any of this,” he mentions.

“It’s for you,” says Irina.

He takes a drink, then puts an arm around her waist and kisses the side of her head; he breathes out and mumbles, “Not feeling sick yet?”

“Sometimes it takes longer,” she tells him, turning down the pan as the cheese begins to sizzle.

He nods, pressing his teeth together; he remembers holding Kala after the news about her father, the way she would cling and stay still, a statue unwilling to part with him; sometimes she would fall asleep, but her grip would remain on his collar, his wrist, and her eyes would flick worriedly under their lids. He took advantage of these times to process what she was -- the loss of a parent -- but unlike her, never explained this. He was grateful for her grief because he could hide his in it.

He considers telling his mother that he never told Kala that she was sick, but stops himself, instead mumbling, “I don’t know if we can work together.” His jaw tightens further. “She doesn’t want to see me."

Irina nods slowly and tucks her thinning hair behind her ear, her eyes tired but intent. He notices her fingers grow slightly tighter around the spoon, and she clicks her tongue gently on her teeth, an anxious noise she believes goes unnoticed.

“You never did tell me what happened...” she says, turning off the heat, “You said it was over but you didn’t talk about it.”

He glances down, appearing darkly amused despite the genuine twist of guilt in his stomach. “You might yell at me if I tell you.”

"I knew it was your fault,” says Irina.

He takes down two bowls and she fills them with the noodles. They sit at the table he built for her last year. He left her old things at her original apartment and rented it out, because she insisted this apartment would be temporary -- he supposes now that short-lived is a better term.

She sips a bit of the tea she had left on the table. “Did you cheat on her?”

“No,” he says quietly, a bite of noodles on his fork; his appetite suddenly wanes. “I thought about it.”

Irina sighs.

“I didn’t want to but I thought that would end it quickly,” he adds.

“Wolfgang,” says Irina quietly.

“I know what that sounds like,” he replies.

“Do you?” she wonders.

“Yes, I do,” he says, a bit terse. “I thought that would be easier on her. Because that’s a weakness it’s not...it’s not a choice you think out.”

“But you didn’t do that?” asks Irina.

“No, it wasn’t honest,” he says dully.

“So what did you tell her?”

He gives the slightest shake of his head, unable to give into the gravity of the topic without sinking irrevocably into it. “I didn’t. I just told her I was done and I left.” He pauses, just a breath of hesitation, before adding, “Her dad was sick, he died a month later.”

He knows his tone was too light, too passive, but he doesn’t want to commit to the tone something like this requires; that implies care, and he isn’t ready.

“You knew he was sick when you left her?” checks Irina.

He drinks. “If I stayed, I’d be with her while she grieved him and--

“And you didn’t want to be,” says Irina.

“No. I did. I didn’t know how to be.” He pauses, considering how much he should tell his mom -- his love for Kala was uncomplicated, effortless. Her father’s illness was the first major obstacle, and he’s sure he could have helped her through it if he wasn’t going through the same, though he wonders about his choice to conceal his worries from her. He expected that she couldn’t care about Irina when her own father was sick; he thought he was protecting her by hiding this.

“I couldn’t,” he says finally. “I didn’t know how.”

“And you hate not knowing how,” says Irina, trailing off. “You hate mistakes.”

She doesn’t complete the thought she often imparted when he was little -- you hate mistakes, but you need to make them.

He shifts, uncomfortable. “I made the wrong mistakes. I--” He stops himself, but he knows the tone of his last syllable gave him away.

 “You want to be with her,” guesses Irina.

“I miss her,” he says, each word falling like a dropping stone.

“Tell her that,” says Irina.

Wolfgang shakes his head. “It won’t matter to her.”

“It will if it’s true,” she says.

He half-laughs, amused by his mother’s optimism. “Right.”

Irina fidgets, frustrated. He can tell by her expression that she wants to scold him, which he’s sure he deserves, but she lets her breath out and merely says, “I liked you two.”

"I know--"

"No," she says emphatically. "You were different with her."

He nods, thumbing over the lip of the bottle in his hand, and thinks back to the first time Irina met Kala.

_It was a weekend morning -- Sunday, he realizes, remembering the neighborhood bells -- and his mother stopped by after church with bread. This was a custom of hers, but it slipped his mind due to Kala's presence. His mom's schedule wasn't at the front of his mind when Kala was in his kitchen, wearing the pajamas she finally agreed to keep in his top dresser drawer._

_Kala answered the door cheerfully, one finger still in her mouth from tasting the pancake batter, but froze at the sight of Irina. Wolfgang, after yelling to ask who was there (and fatefully calling Kala süße), remembered his mother's weekend habits and hurried to the door. He had hoped the term had escaped Irina's notice, but her smirk told him otherwise._

_She knew him well enough to assume a girl might be lingering over after a Saturday night out, but she wouldn't expect a girlfriend. If he hadn't called Kala by that name, he could have avoided the conversation that followed._

_"Who's this?" asked Irina._

_"I'm Kala," said Kala, smiling professionally._

_"She's my girlfriend," said Wolfgang, sliding his hand along Kala's back; he still remembers her surprised, overjoyed eyes as she glanced up at him._

_"Girlfriend," said Irina._

_Wolfgang glanced down with a smile. "Yeah, six months."_

Wolfgang sets his beer on the table, looks at his mother, and says carefully, "What was different about me?"

Irina shakes her head with a smile. "I can't describe it."

"Try to," he mumbles, surprising himself for pursuing this.

She brings both hands around her tea and her eyes drift to the window behind him. "You were yourself."

He laughs. "I'm not now?"

"No," she replies. "Not like you were with her." She looks down and adds more solemnly, "You shouldn't have left her like that."

His chest contorts. "I know."

Irina manages a small smile and says after a moment, "Nothing is permanent."

He eyes her, worried and pitying. "Some things are."

"You never fell out of love," Irina continues, ignoring him, her voice almost bright.

"She did," he insists.

"You don't know that, and don't tell me that you do," says Irina flatly.

He finishes his beer and drifts on the image of Kala in the courtyard, her electric eyes. Her features were always so soft, so open for him; to see them contorted in uncharacteristic rage shook him.

He shakes his head slowly. "I never lied to her. I didn't know how to tell her that I..."

"Was scared?" She leans forward, more energized. "It's ironic, don't you think? The way men run from their fears so they can pretend to be brave? I know someone else who did that."

"I'm nothing like him," says Wolfgang tersely. "You've said that yourself."

"Well, blood is blood," she mumbles. "Maybe you have to fight it."

He bristles and leans forward too, brows coming together. "You think he should have stayed? You think that would have been better? You can't force something like that."

"I hated your father," she says with a smile softened by time. "I didn't want him to stay."

He gestures, annoyed, and sits back. "There you go."

"But that isn't why he left," she goes on. "He left because it was easier."

Wolfgang grips his beer, too aggravated to notice that it's empty. "He left because he didn't want to spend his money on us!"

"Yes, because that's easier!"

"No--"

"It was easier for you to leave before her father died! It was easier! Don't be like your father--"

"I'm not!" he argues. "I love her, he never loved you!"

Irina blinks, then smiles and leans back with her tea. He hangs his head and scoffs, realizing the trap she set.

"Right," he mumbles, getting up.

"Wolfgang, if you love her--"

"It doesn't matter if she doesn't love me," he says.

He puts his empty beer in the bin and goes to the door for his jacket. "Get some sleep."

"Wolfgang--"

"I have to go."

She twists in her chair. "Wolfgang!"

He walks out. At home, he regrets his anger, which he knows only served to prove her right. He texts her a cursory sorry and says he'll come by for breakfast, and is about to click his phone off and try to sleep when a new text comes in. He deleted the number, but he recognizes it instantly.

_I found something. Come to the lab._

He rubs his hand over his stubbly face. _Now?_

He watches the dots that indicate she's replying, but they stop and then his phone rings. He lets it go a moment, exhausted and unsure, and then picks up. Kala's voice sounds as rough as he feels.

"You have to see this. It can't wait."

He sits up. "Tell me."

"Not over the phone."

He blinks and fumbles for a light on his bedside table. "Kala."

"You have to come," she insists.

He pauses, ignoring Moose, who is nibbling at his elbow, excited at the prospect of a late-night walk. "Why?"

"If you don't come here, I'll come there," she tells him.

"You didn't answer me," he mumbles.

She doesn't speak, but he hears her swallow.

"You can't answer me?" he guesses.

"I don't know," she says quietly.

He holds still. "Is someone there with you?"

"No," she says. "But this isn't simple."

He hesitates, breathing out heavily. Then he slides his legs out of bed, recognizing that after an argument like that, Kala would not call him back to the office for nothing. He pulls his jeans over his boxers, angling the phone on his shoulder.

"Okay," he finally says.

He leaves for the lab and stops for coffee on the way, getting Kala an almond milk latte with vanilla and raw sugar -- a drink he used to call her a yuppie primadonna for always ordering. He suspects she'll snarl at him for thinking a favor could attenuate the tension between them, but he doesn't care; it isn't a favor or a ploy. It isn't even an apology. It's the right thing to do on a late cold night for a colleague, which is all she is, all she can be if he doesn't want to be reassigned.

He enters the bureau, recalling his thirty-six-hour shifts as a cop before he made detective; this investigation will be similarly taxing if the last two days are any indication. He shows the guard his badge and reaches Kala's department a moment later. He finds her hunched under the bright lights, so white they're nearly blue. She startles at the noise and looks at him with hurt, reluctant eyes before getting up.

He slides her the coffee and she stares at it, mouth twisting. Then she takes out her purse and hands him a few euros.

"Are you serious?" he complains.

"I don't take charity," she mumbles, adding as she pulls open an evidence drawer, "or bribery."

"Did you get me out of bed to start another fight?" he asks.

She weakens momentarily, holding back a shaky breath. "No." She leads him to a section of the counter where she has laid out several chunks of silicone, aluminum, and alloys. "I couldn't stop thinking about the projectiles. I thought at first that using so many small pieces was just to maximize injury. But...but these materials are such an odd choice, and I kept thinking about what Dr. Caplan said, how extracting and differentiating so much metal and plastic would be nearly impossible."

He nods. "So what are you thinking?"

She folds her arms, glancing down, then picks up one of the smaller pieces. "You need to look at this first. It was cataloged as part of one of the explosives, and see, if you turn it..."

He turns it, revealing a blinking red light. His muscles grow tight, his jaw tensing. He prepares himself. "Kala."

"This was part of another piece, but it broke apart when I picked it up. I didn't notice the light until then." She pauses, noticing his agitation. "It isn't an explosive. And even if it is, it's so small, all it could do is destroy itself."

"I know it isn't an explosive," he says, tone measured. He sets it down gingerly and takes a notepad from beside her microscope, then scrawls out: _It's a bug. Is this why you wouldn't talk?_

She nods while she reads, then whispers, "There are some other abnormalities too. 

He picks up the blinking piece of wreckage again, glancing at her. "Are there more like this?"

"Yes, one," she agrees.

Can we take this one apart? he writes.

She considers, then nods, opening up a drawer of instruments. She lays out a cloth and pulls a chair closer for him, and in her focus, sips some of the coffee he brought her. He notices this but doesn't comment, sitting down as she does. She pulls some glasses from her coat pocket and ties her hair into a quick, inexplicably neat bun, and leans closer as they both examine the device.

"Have you done this before?" she murmurs as he reaches for a small metal spudger.

He shakes his head and shifts one of the microscopes closer, positioning the device under it, then begins to work open a chunk of loose metal. Kala breathes in deeply next to him, watching; after a moment, the light blinks brighter, more exposed. He offers the microscope to her and watches as her eyebrows perk above the lenses, then nudges her and pulls the notepad back over.

_GSM model, anyone can buy one._

She nods and writes back: _Are they listening right now?_  

He exhales in annoyance at the delay in communication, taking the time to write out: _Could be. It's remote. Signals them when it picks up voices._

She pulls the pad back to her. _From how far away?_

_Anywhere_ , he writes.

He looks under the microscope again, stopping before he pries more metal away, suspicious of the pattern emerging underneath. But he continues, aware that if his misgivings are correct, they have limited time to study the device anyway. He peels back more metal, exposing more to the light, revealing the back of a photo-sensitive diode.

He swears quietly and grabs the pen again: _Can't operate in the light._

"So how do we examine it?" she murmurs.

He shakes his head. "We don't."

She writes, handwriting slightly worse due to speed:  _Under another wavelength?_  

"No," he says. "We can't trace it anyway." He leans back into the microscope and continues pulling the metal back, exposing the rest of the diode and two small red wires. "Best we can do is--" He stops, the device beginning to smoke.

He swears, flicking the device to the floor on the other side of the counter. Then he ducks, pushing Kala down in her seat, his arm protectively around her head. He keeps her down, waiting, and the sound of a firecracker fills the laboratory, echoing. They stay still, breathing hard, and then the fire alarm blares and water pours down from the sprinklers in the ceiling.

An hour later, they sit next to each other outside the lab, both of them changed from their wet clothes to bureau t-shirts and sweats. Kala keeps her arms crossed, gaze unwavering out the window in front of her, and he glances down with both hands around his lukewarm coffee.

"You didn't consider calling me?" asks Agent Maliki, called out of bed after the fire department arrived.

"It was a GSM bug, there was no way to examine it anyway, not with that diode," says Wolfgang, disregarding him. "We have another one."

"And why are you two here at three in the morning?" he continues.

"She couldn't sleep," Wolfgang says. "She works when she can't sleep."

Kala looks at him, then crosses her legs tightly, unable to argue. He glances at her, noticing her posture, sure she's craving a cigarette.

"Ms. Dandekar?" asks Maliki.

"Yes, that's true," she says through her teeth. "And he is here because I called him."

Jonas looks at them for another moment, then shakes his head and shoulders his briefcase. "I suggest you both get some sleep. We can return to this in the morning after I have consulted a surveillance expert." His lips form a disgruntled line, and he adds, "As you should have done."

He walks away and Wolfgang's eyes flicker in annoyance as he drinks his coffee. "Prick."

Kala rubs her eyes, then runs her hand through her hair. He glances at her, noting her ragged expression and the bags under her eyes, and he softens slightly and rests his elbows on his knees.

"You were going to say something earlier," he prompts. "Before you showed me the bug."

She nods, eyes still drifting out the window. "Yes."

He keeps his gaze on her, reaching into their past to find a soft tone. "Do you want to get something to eat?"

She rubs her eyes again, but nods. "I might as well. I won't sleep."

He nods too, then starts quietly, "Kala--"

He stops when she shakes her head, warning him not to continue. She holds her shoulders and neck as stiff and still as possible, her nails digging into the side of her arms. He looks away and gets up and she walks silently alongside him to the elevators.

He understands why Felix started taking meds -- no one works hours like that and stays sober without the world spilling into the mind's periphery, warping reality, dulling every point. He takes a moment in the elevators to close his eyes, limbs heavy with exhaustion.

They walk to a nearby cafe while she smokes a cigarette, but she stops just short of the entrance, her warm eyes flashing as she takes in the yellow and red facade, the windows marked with chalk paint, the graffiti around the door like a strange wreath. Wolfgang stops too. If he wasn't so tired, he would have remembered that they had been to this cafe before.

   
 _"Is it strange I want breakfast?" she asked him, walking with him out of the bureau and into the plummy sunset._

_"No," he said, "there's a place around the corner."_

_She glanced at him, smiling with a hint of playfulness. "Maybe sometime, we'll eat what we're supposed to, when we're supposed to."_

_He grinned a bit, aware she was referring to their midnight falafel at the conference months ago. "This counts as dinner if we get a drink."_

_"It does," she agreed._

_His expression turned a bit impish and he caught her eye. She laughed and he opened the door to the cafe for her, chest filling with unfamiliar hope. He liked this girl. Talking to her was simple. She caught the words he didn't say. She got his gestures and expressions. Already, they spoke a language only the two of them knew, and it had only been a week since she transferred to Berlin._

_They sat at one of the wooden slat tables. He looked a bit more appropriate for the venue, wearing a polizei t-shirt and jeans -- her elegant skirt suit, crystal-studded watch, and immaculate red lips would have fit in closer to the center of the city. But he liked the contrast between them and he found his gaze stuck on her as she tucked a shiny curl behind her ear, the sun glinting off the ruby band she wore around her middle finger._

_He knew her family wasn't wealthy when she lived in India and he sensed a touch of ruthless ambition in her. He sensed that she worked harder than everyone else, which helped explain how she was promoted to her current position being only twenty-four. He had worked hard too and was one of the youngest to graduate from the police academy, but he knew that his work was just work. Hers was part of a wider fight for everyone like her, and that gave her an intensity he knew he'd never quite match._

_Still, he understood her drive. He sensed that she, like him, had never been satisfied._

_She caught him staring, but he didn't glance away. He folded his hands one over the another and then he smiled, a tiny wrinkle starting on either side of his mouth. She pulled her lips just slightly into her mouth, eyes brightening, and didn't shy either. They found themselves looking at each other often, no need to speak._

_She ordered their drinks when the waitress came by, a bit flushed and flustered, and her knee brushed his under the table. He got the sense that she was as new to intimacy and vulnerability as he was, though in a different way. They hadn't talked about past relationships, but he suspected that she, like him, didn't have one to speak of._

_They took the first sips of their drinks after a moment, looking into each other's eyes again. He felt worryingly close to her after so little time. They'd only spent one night talking, and though that night was singularly intense for them both, it was still one night -- and now that night was months past, and they'd only reunited today in the hallway._

_He glanced at her after another sip of beer, assessing how to ask what was on his mind. She looked at him openly and stirred her pomegranate mojito._

_"Why didn't you call me after Munich?" he asked her._

_She answered more easily than he expected her to, though she glanced down. "Because that night felt like the kind you have once in your life, and I didn't want to ruin it by making it something it wasn't. So I waited to see if you appeared in my life again." She glanced at him. "And you did."_

_He nodded, pretending to be serious. "So you finally meet someone you like and you say...better lose this guy?"_

_He thought she would laugh, but she looked down again and shook her head slightly._

_Then she smiled. She smiled with such intense joy that his hair stood on end. He sat up straighter and breathed in to steady himself, because with that smile, he knew. With that smile, he understood whatever people meant when they said that stupid platitude. The words he hated for being indefinable and abstract suddenly took shape in a way that no others had._

Outside of the same cafe, he avoids Kala's eyes. She stands with stiff, still arms, staring at the sign as she might a childhood photo, the kind with a story her family never knew. Anyone else would see a cafe, but she saw the place that swallowed two years of her life and spit her out in pieces, and so did he.

The older he was, the more Wolfgang noticed that the memories that stuck with him weren't the ones he expected. The time they spent after they left the cafe that first night should have been more memorable. They talked all night -- family, politics, fear. The best empanadas in the city. College, doubt, whether Grease was any good. They went to her place and made love. And while he remembers it all, if he thinks of that night, he thinks first about her smile and his astonishment. It was his first brush with faith.

"I know everything is closed," Kala says blankly, her voice filtering in through his memories. "But I'll go anywhere else. We can drive."

He keeps his gaze on the door. "My mom is dying."

Kala startles.

"I found out a couple of months before your dad died. I should have told you but I didn't know if I should, you were a mess, and I didn't want to take what you were feeling." He pauses and goes on more quietly, "I thought I could be stronger than you, be there just for you. I tried not to think about my mother, but when you said it was over for your dad..." He shook his head. "Then all I could think about was her and I couldn't be there for you."

"Wolfgang," says Kala faintly.

He forces himself to look at her. "I left because I didn't want to admit that to you. That's the only reason. Nothing else."

Her dark eyes become voltaic, tears tumbling over her cheeks.

"I should have told you the truth," he says quietly. "I shouldn't have let you wonder if I loved you."

She swallows, wiping her eyes; then she looks down and shakes her head, exhausted and grieving. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry." She touches her fingers to her eyes again and sniffles, her gaze drifting across the street. "I never wondered if you loved me, Wolfgang. I didn't understand why you left, but I never thought that was why. So thank you for telling me, but it doesn't change anything."

"I think it changes everything--"

"Of course you do," she says softly. "But it doesn't, because I don't love you anymore." She gives a slight shake of her head, tears pouring again. "I'm sorry."

The words sink cold claws into his chest. He stares at her and she looks into his eyes, hurt and sorrowful. Then she hurries away from him down the street.

* * *

Kala lays awake that night despite her exhaustion, curled on her side with the curtains drawn open, her eyes flicking across the skyline beyond the window. She lingers on the lights in strangers' windows, soothing herself by creating stories that explain their insomnia. One of them just returned from the airport. Another has a new baby. One girl is working on a term paper. A couple is up late in a sea of take-out boxes, vowing to cancel Netflix after one more episode.

She discovered as a teenager that narrating the unfamiliar lives around her made her feel less alone. Growing up, she barely spoke to anyone in her family beside her father; in college, she found no time for friends, let alone men; she never made friends at the agency either, even in Munich, though she worked there for years. She had always been self-reliant, guarded, and ambitious, and she had always swallowed the solitude that came with that; she accepted that as the price of admiration back home.

Then Wolfgang crashed into her. She fell in love with him immediately. She threw herself into a relationship that was serious from the first night, because neither of them had ever felt so strongly about someone else, because it was impossible to deny or delay how they wanted each other.

Being alone wasn't hard when it was all she knew. After he left, it was debilitating.

She shifts in bed and huddles further under the covers, memories drifting to Irina. The thought of her sick and alone in her apartment makes Kala's chest clench. She knows Wolfgang is taking care of her, but he works so late that she's sure Irina is often lonely, likely terrified; and Wolfgang surely listens to her, but Kala doubts if he ever expresses faith or hope.

Her father was fairly old and he was happy when he died; he trusted life and trusted death too; it seemed to him a new step to take, the start of another life. And he died with his whole family in the hospital room. Kala can't help but think that Irina's experience will be wholly different, and she can't help feeling a touch of guilt.

Irina was so energized, so joyful, when she learned that Wolfgang was dating someone. Kala distinctly remembers the look in her eyes when Wolfgang introduced her as his girlfriend -- her excitement was so conspicuous that later that night, Wolfgang joked "she's already thinking about grandkids." Kala had laughed and teased him back, but she sensed that quip was accurate; she sensed that Irina had always wanted a big family, and since she couldn't have one herself, then she'd love for her son to have one.

And Kala was the first sign that this wish wasn't impossible. She was serious enough about Wolfgang that Irina's gentle comments about how they'd make good parents weren't entirely out of place. And she was the one who encouraged this, because she knew Irina liked the idea; she didn't see the harm in entertaining that possibility with the woman who would be her mother-in-law, because she never imagined that she and Wolfgang would split up, or that Irina would get so ill, so quickly.

Wolfgang's insistence that they shut up about something years away seems more appropriate now. Kala feels sick and ashamed thinking of the times Irina expressed how thankful she was that her son found something real, how comforted she was that he was finally in love with someone as bright and beautiful and lively as her.

_"My mom loves you," Wolfgang said to her once, almost asleep with his head in her lap._

_She paused, her fingers in his hair, her other hand cupping a mug of warm milk with cinnamon. It was a late, chilly night, and he'd just returned from dropping some dinner off for Irina._

_"What did she say?" she asked, reluctant to glance away from her book._

_He turned to look at her, sliding his knuckles along her arm, and shook his head slightly. "She asked me why I haven't asked you to marry me yet."_

_She flushed and slowly folded her book closed. "Oh."_

_His eyes flickered, soft and affectionate; then he breathed out, almost laughing, and glanced up at her. "She doesn't like anyone, but she likes you. What did you do to her?"_

_Kala watched him, cautious, but couldn't help smiling. "I should have told you about the blackmail. "_

_He grinned gently. "I knew there was something."_

_Then Kala shook her head, smile fading. She brushed over his lips with her fingers and stared down at him. "I think she's happy that you're happy. That's all." She paused, thumbing his bottom lip, her gaze drifting. "What did you say when she asked you that?"_

_"I told her that's not what you want," he replied._

_"Otherwise you would have asked me?" she asked, amused._

_"The day I met you," he said._

_She inhaled, heart flooding, equally touched and frustrated by how earnestly he said this. She gave a tiny shake of her head, then shifted on the couch so she was laying beside him, hugging him with her face tucked in his neck. He turned to look at her, his nose touching hers, and she smiled tenderly and broke into a grin just before he kissed her._

Tonight, Kala struggles to draw breath against the weight of that memory. She doesn't understand how something so strong became so fragile. She sits up in bed and wipes her eyes, looking at the empty space next to her.

The intensity of her love for him changed her. It spilled out of her in pangs and shivers and wild laughter. She felt adrift in it, lost to it, powerless and transported. When she was with him, this intensity heightened every word, every touch; the world was infinite when she looked into his eyes. But she remembered being terrified too. When she was alone, the intensity pulled her under in a different way. Her heart no longer felt like hers alone, and this vulnerability was opposed to every choice she had made in her life. She thought of herself as strong, and she didn't want to think of love as a weakness -- but she knew if anything could wreck her, this could. 

She wonders sometimes if they split because they had found something too powerful for anyone to bear.

She wipes her eyes again and sniffles, glancing at the clock -- 5:03 -- and winces at what she said to him. She never fell out of love with him. If she had, she wouldn't be sick with sorrow. But after her father died, she lost touch with herself; she found herself working through simple emotions, confused by them; she cried at what used to make her laugh, and what used to touch her like nothing else left her numb and empty. It was as if she forgot how to read and had to sound out the syllables again. A full sentence still seemed beyond her grasp.

She felt that the emotional nuance it would take to reconnect with Wolfgang was months away. She feared if it was gone forever.

* * *

Wolfgang wakes up after an hour of sleep to find Moose eating a loaf of bread he left on the counter. He rubs his eyes and wrestles the contraband from the dog, and after failing to find half the shredded bits of the plastic bag, schedules a vet appointment. He informs Moose that she's on thin ice, and Moose nibbles at his palm and wags, asking for breakfast. 

He shakes his head, starting some coffee. Despite his fatigue, he finds himself clear-minded. Kala said the words he was waiting to hear. If she doesn’t love him anymore, then it’s over -- it doesn’t matter if he still loves her. He can’t fix a feeling that has died.

He'd always found loss easier when it was well-defined. If Kala didn't love him anymore, then his grief would be simple; if she was telling the truth, then losing her had lost its messy edges. Suddenly, there was nothing to salvage -- he would grieve, but he wouldn't lose himself in uncertainty. And he had always handled loss better than doubt.

He drinks two cups of coffee and runs a few kilometers with Moose. He showers quickly and goes to work with more energy than he expected to, dressed well for the meeting he thought was inevitable after last night. As expected, the conference room next to the lab is filled with officials and heads of security, including the Chancellor. She's talking to Jonas and Kala, who is a grey-faced wreck, clutching her coffee and a legal pad like two lifelines.

He sits by Felix and flips open his notes, clicking his pen.

"You look like shit," Felix informs him.

"Why are you here?" he asks, dating the page.

"They asked me to analyze the -- whatever shit you found, the bug," he explains. "The one you didn't blow up. You know they already know we found one, right? That's what that diode's for."

"Unavoidable," Wolfgang says.

"Weird," says Felix fervently. "So fucking weird. Who stashes that kind of shit in a bomb?'

"They picked something generic," says Wolfgang, "so we don't know who." He sets his pen down. "There are more in the bodies."

"So they're what, bugging all our morgues? What good does that do?"

"They're bugging us. When's the last time a bug made it into an agency lab?" mumbles Wolfgang.

Felix glances away. "Never. Well, you know, not after the whole Stasi situation."

Wolfgang nods in annoyance. "You think that situation's applicable?"

"You're a fucking nerd, who would have thought," says Felix, swishing his thermos. "No, it's not applicable, I'm just saying. Sounds like a neo-Soviet thing, right? They're getting, you know, bold."

"I thought you were working on Hezbollah," says Wolfgang.

"Yeah, who fucking isn't..." Felix mutters. "And a nerd like you should know there's a relationship there, them and--"

Wolfgang rubs his face. "Russia, yeah." He glances at Felix. "Neo-Soviet?"

"Forgot the word for Russia," admits Felix.

"Fuck, get help," says Wolfgang and then they both laugh.

The other agents and delegates trail in. Kala and Jonas are the last to sit down and Wolfgang notices that he doesn't feel the metal-on-metal grind that Kala usually provokes in him; she's one step closer to being a stranger.

"Dr. Dandekar," says Jonas quietly.

Kala stands up. Wolfgang spent enough time with her that he knows she's about to puke, but she swallows the urge and lays out a quiet but insistent explanation about the bombers' motivations.

Then she takes some of the projectile debris from a cart and shows how they fit together. He leans forward, sensing this is what she never got the chance to explain to him last night.

 He makes out a thin wing on the piece she’s holding. It’s small, limited in agility, but he knows it belongs to a drone.

"--I expect they planted enough to compensate for those that were destroyed by the heat or the impact," Kala says softly.

"I don't see how any could have withstood the heat of these explosions," says one man, asking to see the drone.

"This one did," replies Kala. "And so did an advanced recording device. I believe the metal around it was designed to melt and protect what was inside."

"Unfortunately," Jonas continues, "many of these contraptions may be in the victims' bodies. We need to decide -- quickly -- what we do with this." He looks to Wolfgang. "Agent Bogdanow?"

"There was too much metal in the bodies to identify any device," says Wolfgang quickly. "It could take months to excise everything."

"What do you suggest?"

"You should ask Dr. Dandekar," he replies.

Kala straightens. "We should excise as much as possible. I expect the victims furthest away will have the pieces that are the most intact. Otherwise...it would be best if the bodies are cremated." She swallows. "I suggest we cremate anyone whose family agrees. Those who don't...we should prioritize at autopsy."

"So you believe these drones are operational?" asks the Chancellor. "That they could leave a victim's body?"

"It's possible," admits Kala.

"But wouldn't someone notice?" one of her assistants asks.

"It's dangerous to assume that," says Kala. "These drones are small."

"And the bugs would work inside a body," Wolfgang adds. "They're designed to work in walls."

The committee lets out a collective breath, adjusting in their seats and capping their pens. Kala lifts a shaky hand to her face and rubs her eyes, smearing her kohl liner a touch. The military advisors begin to talk about minimizing collateral if the drones are indeed operational. Security experts pull Wolfgang to their end of the table to talk about limiting communication with the labs and morgues. Kala is nearby, talking to Jonas and another forensics expert, but her voice doesn't distract him.

He knows he may be lying to himself. He knows that throwing himself into his work is a temporary fix. But if he acts like he doesn't care that she's gone, then maybe soon, he truly won't care. He'll play the role until it's real.

The meeting disperses after another hour and Wolfgang agrees to get lunch with Felix and Agent Bak to work through the missing pieces of the criminal aspect of the investigation. He's just put his briefcase over his shoulder when Kala's voice startles him in the door of his office.

He looks at her, wary, and she collects herself.

"I want to see your mother," she says.

He slides his finger along his keys in his pocket, considering. "Why?"

"Because I'm sorry she's sick, I want to tell her that, I -- I want to apologize to her for everything that's happened," she replies.

"Kala, it's okay, she knows it was my fault," he tells her, quiet.

But she shakes her head. "No, I want to see her. I won't if you think it would upset her, but I -- I need to do this."

He glances down, unsettled, but finds himself nodding. "Alright. Do you have to go now?"

Kala nods. "I have a meeting in two hours."

"She's at the hospital today, here's the room number," he agrees, scribbling it on a piece of scratch paper.

Kala takes the note and gives a strange, faltering smile, then hurries away from him. His gaze lingers on her retreating figure for a moment, but he forces the worry from his mind when Felix yells at him to hurry before the good seats at Walhalla are taken in the lunch rush.

* * *

Kala is accustomed to operating on a serious sleep deficiency, but by mid-afternoon, she finds herself so exhausted that simple tasks are puzzles. She made the decision to see Irina when she was in a sleepless fog, and doubts whether it is a good idea, but she's too addled to reconsider by the time she reaches the hospital.

She hasn't been to a hospital since her father died. She's unprepared for the bright, sterile smell but she doesn't let herself pause on her way to the oncology department.

She would have preferred seeing Irina at her apartment, but she couldn't wait. She needs to know if Irina hates her, blames her, pities her. She needs to say goodbye before she loses the chance. And she needs to express her tangle of remorse and anger and regret. 

She receives a guest pass from the nurses' station after fibbing that she's Irina's daughter in law, then slips down the hall to the left, counting up to room 118. She glimpses Irina just past the mint green curtain and hesitates a beat before knocking and cracking the door open.

"I thought you had to work today," says Irina, turning with a frown, expecting Wolfgang.

Kala finds herself wholly unprepared for how fragile and pale Irina appears. She looks like a forgotten doll, diminutive in the chemotherapy chair, overwhelmed by IVs. She's gripping a cooking magazine, her eyes wide and uncertain as Kala steps further inside.

"You can tell me to leave," Kala murmurs. "I don't know how to begin. Wolfgang never told me that you were sick and I..." The room swims in front of her and she steadies herself on a table nearby. She looks down and tells herself to breathe. "I had to say that I'm sorry."

"Oh, honey," says Irina quietly. "Oh, you look like you need more sleep."

"I do," admits Kala.

"Come here, sit down," says Irina, shifting some magazines from the chair beside her. She smiles and pats the seat. "Come on, it's alright, I know it's been a while."

Kala nods listlessly and sits next to her. She tucks her hair behind her ears and shifts her purse off her shoulder, nerves crackling through her fingers and toes, stomach tight. "I should have called you and asked if I could--"

"Kala, you know I don't blame you," Irina interrupts. "Don't you know that?"

"I don't know what Wolfgang told you," says Kala faintly. "Even if he told you the truth, I wouldn't blame you for hating me. It's...it's natural to be on his side of all of this."

Irina considers her, almost smiling, then says with a softer voice, "I'm not on his side. I think he made the biggest mistake of his life."

Kala stares, fingers like iron around the straps of her purse. She shakes her head, perplexed. Irina reaches to take one of her hands, gently coaxing her to unclench her fist. She gives her hand a squeeze and thumbs over her knuckles, looking into her eyes with easy familiarity.

"I'm about to sound like an old lady," says Irina. "I know you're no fool, but you never dated anyone before him, right?"

Kala glances away, eyes widening slightly. "I hope he didn't tell you all of my secrets."

Irina grins and chuckles, shaking her head. "Wolfgang? No, he's an iron vault, I'm his mother and I barely know a thing about him. No no. You told me that, remember? During the intermission of that play last year?"

Kala did remember. She gave a soft nod.

"In my experience," Irina goes on, "men feel like failures if they're not the strong one. Some of that comes from insecurity of course...some of them can't handle when a woman's stronger than they are. But with Wolfgang...well, he's always been such a protector, he's built his life around that. When your dad got sick, oh hon, of course he didn't tell you he was struggling too. He should have, but he wanted to be there for you. And it became too much for him. He got scared of how much he cared about you, he got scared that he was losing me -- and you know that men never admit when they're scared. They can't show that kind of vulnerability."

Kala sniffles and touches her eyes with a tissue. "He could have talked to me."

"But he left instead, I know," says Irina gently. “And I know he regrets it.”

Kala shakes her head and squeezes Irina's hand again. "I do too." She steels herself. "I'm sorry this happened when you're so sick." She looks down. "And God, I'm sorry to even talk to you about this--"

"It isn't your fault," replies Irina. "And that's sweet of you to think of me. I'm sure it hasn't been easy for you. I know you and your dad were close."

Kala nods, brushing back a surge of tears. The heat clicks on, one of the old metal vents shuddering above them.

"We were close," Kala says, trying to smile. "Thank you."

"I'm glad to see you again," Irina continues earnestly. "I missed you."

Kala brightens and nods more vigorously. "I’ve missed you too. I never expected to be so close to you. I thought you would be so protective of him, I thought you would excuse everything he did."

Irina shakes her head. "No no, those are the worst kinds of mothers. I know he's..." She sighs. "Oh, he can really be an ass, can't he?"

Kala lets out a little, yelpy laugh of surprise. Irina starts to laugh too, cheeks growing brighter, and they soften when they meet eyes. Kala wipes her tears again and sniffles hard.

"If you ever need anything," she murmurs to Irina, "well, Wolfgang and I may not be together anymore, but you can always call me, okay?"

Irina nods and smiles, patting her hand. She starts to reply, but her voice is drowned out by an alarm and a monotone announcement over the intercom: CODE GREEN.

Kala turns, staring at the sudden commotion in the hall. The sound of sirens grows closer outside. She frowns, looking at Irina, and quickly steps out of the way of the nurses who rush to unlatch Irina's IVs.

"What's happened?" Kala asks insistently.

"We're evacuating," says one nurse.

"Why--"

"Miss, you need to follow the evacuation procedures like everyone else, I'm sure you'll get more information soon--"

Kala's phone rings and she rifles in her purse for it, walking alongside Irina as one of the nurses wheels her into the hall. She answers the phone looking at the display.

"Are you at the hospital?"

It's Wolfgang and she's never heard his voice like this.

"Yes, we--"

"Get out," he directs her. "Get out as fast as you can."

"What?" she asks, talking louder over the confusion and alarms. "We're evacuating, what's--"

"Kala, get out, get my mother out," he says flatly. "There's been a security breach."

He hangs up. Kala bristles with fear, muscles going stiff. She walks down the hall in the sea of panicked patients and staff, keeping a hand on Irina's shoulder. The evacuation proceeds slowly, the hallways clogged, and Kala waits to hear an explosion; minutes pass to the sounds of fear and impatience, sirens echoing as police surround the hospital. By the time Kala nears the exit, she has passed several heavily-armed agents wearing gas masks.

Outside, beyond a cluster of bewildered patients, she watches patrol car after patrol car pull along the hospital, lights flaring, door flung open. When she sees that most of the agents are entering through the morgue, her heart stutters. She breathes in hard and squeezes Irina's shoulder, but before she can speak, she sees Wolfgang across the lawn, shouting at Jonas with an abandoned ferocity that rarely surfaces in him.

She sees him rip a mask out of Jonas's hands and hurry towards her, incensed and disturbed, another mask tucked under his arm. She notices that he's wearing a Kevlar vest like the other agents that responded.

"What is he doing?" Irina asks timidly.

Kala shakes her head, unable to speak, and stares into Wolfgang's eyes as he approaches. He thrusts the mask into her hands.

"Put that on," he says, adding to his mother, "Everything is going to be okay, but we have to go."

"Wolfgang--"

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'll explain this to you later.

He takes Kala's arm and pulls her towards the lawn. She throws his grip off, nettled, and yells, "What is going on?"

"I'm going to show you," he says, walking so fast that she nearly has to run. "They don't want anyone but agents in there right now, but you should see this."

"Why is everyone wearing masks?" she demands, angling across the lawn to the entrance of the morgue, where doctors and agents are gathered.

"Because we don't know what got released in the vents," he replies.

She grows cold. "Something was released in the vents? With everyone inside the hospital?"

He looks at her and doesn't answer, but the fear in his eyes is enough confirmation. She inhales and nods, adjusting the mask to fit her. He puts on his mask too at the door, pressing through other agents, who look at Kala guardedly.

"She's forensics, she can't come in here--"

"I'm the special agent on this case," says Wolfgang. "If I say she goes in, then she goes in. Move."

The other agent doesn't move. "Agent Maliki instructed--"

"This is a biological incident," argues Wolfgang. "I want one goddamn forensics expert here. And Dr. Dandekar was inside the hospital when this happened. She's already been in contact with whatever contaminant that was."

The other agent steps aside. They jostle past the others, nearing the entrance, but Kala stops -- she sees Amanita sitting on a curb with another doctor attending to a gash on her knee. Wolfgang tries to prevent her from straying, but she shakes him off again, hurrying to her friend.

Amanita looks up at her with big, distraught eyes. She starts to shake her head. "Holy shit, Kala. I -- I've never seen anything like this."

"Are you hurt? What happened?"

"No, no, I'll be alright I guess --"

"Kala!" says Wolfgang sharply.

She ignores him. "What happened?"

"There's...drones," says Amanita unsurely. "Did...did your agency know that before this happened? These morgues should have been locked down--"

Kala paled and shook her head slightly. "I...I can't say--"

"This is going to happen at the other hospitals," says Amanita, very quiet. "It's probably happening right now."

"It is," Wolfgang says shortly. "It's all over the city."

Kala stares at him, breaking away from Amanita in her distraction. "What?"

"Every hospital that received victims from the bombings," says Wolfgang as they enter the hospital.

Kala's mind unspools into terrified speculation. She begins listing potential contaminants: _Bacillus anthracis, Burkholderia mallei, Coxiella burnetii..._

"Wolfgang," she murmurs, the scope of the attack beginning to take form in her mind. "Oh my God."

"I know," he replies, slowing his pace to glance at her as they walk down the hall, flanked by other agents and empty beds.

They reach the entrance to the morgue, which is locked behind several stripes of hazard tape. Wolfgang looks to one of the women already on the scene, Agent Bak.

"They keep coming out," she says quietly, her gaze fixed through the window into the morgue.

Kala looks at Wolfgang, disturbed, and he steps with her beside Sun. They follow her eyes into the morgue, which appears initially secure and intact. Kala notes three bodies out on examining tables, and several refrigerator drawers open. Then she notices movement on the concrete floor -- a small mechanical device, flopping in a slow circle as if damaged. She recognizes the shape of the wing. It's a twin of the splintered drone she found.

Then she looks at one of the bodies, another flash of silver catching her eye. The drone moves like a beetle at first, flexing short, jointed legs, unearthing itself out of the corpse. Kala covers her mouth as it surfaces, sticky with blood and tissue. It pauses, its head whirring, its wings outstretched. It gives a shiver like a dog shaking, then takes to the air, coppery lights reflecting on its belly.

It flies to one of the vents near the ceiling, hovering for a moment. Then the front of it opens up and yellow mist sprays out of it.

"One of them attacked Dr. Caplan," says Agent Bak, gesturing to the injured drone on the ground. "She hit it with a chisel. That was lucky. We can collect that one. The others have self-destructed."

Kala steps forward, her eyes glinting in horror, and she presses her hand softly to the glass. "The victims were never the targets. They were...they were the weapon." She swallows. "If the contaminant is infectious, half of the city is going to die."

A spark flares along the back of the drone and it bursts into white flames. A carbonated metal skeleton drops to the floor and they watch a thin spiral of smoke rise in the empty morgue.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kala reflects on the past, growing more and more unstable. Wolfgang has an unsettling conversation with Jonas.

Kala sits stiffly on an examination table, waiting for a doctor to explain to her what she already knows. She crosses her ankles, breathing in, her hair fluttering in the stream of dusty heat chugging out of the vent in the ceiling.

This hospital is an old one, on the roster for demolition to open up space for a new park. After the attacks five days ago, the demolition was delayed, and terrified patients flooded this hospital and others like it. Clinics had been converted. Old gymnasiums functioned as makeshift laboratories.

Kala glances at the clock, anxious to return home and sleep. With a few pills, her sleep is dreamless, her mind free from the jarring images on the news. She feels smaller than she used to. Inconsequential. One ant that could be easily drowned in the careless drip from some gargantuan and galactic cup of lemonade.

She blinks. The pills have helped her sleep, but they’ve swirled her waking mind. She imagines sticky, suffocating deaths. She contemplates the experience of shrapnel shredding through her body in a dark club. She recites old anatomy mnemonics and envisions her landlady as a cyclops.

When she isn’t spiraling in a depressed fever dream, her thoughts have been on Wolfgang. On their first days together. The images stutter and skip to form an endless, excruciating supercut.

_She was shy the first morning, letting her hair conceal her face while she rested her head on his chest. She remembers the faint scent of his cologne, warmed from his skin and sweat, sweeter than it was during their date yesterday. She remembers staying still while his fingers brushed her back._

_Looking into his eyes was simple when he was inside of her. His touch burned her fears down. But the morning brought clarity. She waited for him to speak, keeping her eyes closed. The sun tracked over her body, warming her inch by inch. She remembers praying that he would be as gentle as he had been before. That this hadn’t changed her in his eyes._

_He shifted onto his side, still sleepy, and moved his hand along her hip under the sheets. She tongued over her bottom lip, her eyes fluttering open, distant and cautious until she saw his smile._

She still remembers that smile distinctly. She knows she always will. Blooms seemed to spring on her skin, castle walls rising around them. She suddenly felt as if her very touch could refract light. She became invisible to everyone but him, magic, immortal.

_She surprised herself by speaking first._

_“You were never the plan,” she whispered, her fingers playing with the slim silver chain he wore around his neck._

_He chuckled. “I know that.”_

_She laughed too, but sobered quickly when he kissed her. He stared at her when he pulled back, exhaling, his hand tangled in her hair._

_“Fuck,” he muttered._

_Her fingers twitched, electric, and she breathed in deeply. She didn’t have to speak to communicate the same, love-drunk punch she felt with every kiss._

Now, staring at the white tile of an exam room, the memory twists her guts. She crumples the paperwork she has in her hands, eyes shifting to the door as a doctor comes in -- about fifty, skinny, scruff that suggests a disregard for clinic work. He gives her a cursory glance and slides a chair over.

“I’ve ordered chest x-rays,” he reports, looking over a file. “You allergic to penicillin?”

She shakes her head, then says, “Well, I’ve never been on it--”

“We’ll do doxycycline,” he interrupts. Then he holds still. “You’re BPOL.”

“I’m -- I work in association with them,” she agrees, handing over her paperwork.

“So you were vaccinated against anthrax.”

“Yes, but all personnel were told to go to a clinic regardless in case the anthrax has been modified to be resistant--”

The doctor uses his teeth to pry the cap off a syringe and grabs her arm. He quickly cleans a spot with an alcohol swab and pushes the needle into one of her veins.

She understands his impatience and irritation. She imagines every doctor in the city must be frayed, pushed to the limits of sleep deprivation. Some of the affected hospitals had been struck by anthrax, potentially deadly but treatable. But a few of the hospitals were contaminated by something more sinister. Aerosolized ricin had left hundreds of patients, doctors, and visitors helplessly awaiting complete organ shut-down. The third day after the attacks saw the highest death toll -- just over a thousand.

Kala had been barred from coming to work, being one of the BPOL employees affected by the attacks, until she was cleared by a doctor. She had talked Felix into giving her daily updates, and she knows at least this much: two suspects had been detained, but doubt was roiling among investigators. The veracity of these suspects’ confessions was apparently dubious from the start, because neither suspect could give an adequate explanation of their strategy. They also appeared uninformed on rudimentary explosives construction.

According to Felix, Wolfgang was one of the detectives who was particularly dissatisfied with the approach the bureau was taking, but she told herself this was neither here nor there -- when wasn’t he dissatisfied?

She also knows that little progress had been made in sourcing the anthrax, ricin, or the bombs and drones themselves, and she doesn’t need Felix’s input to know that the government is in a state of chaos that hasn’t been seen in decades.

She would be glad for the opportunity to stay home if she wasn’t awaiting her own diagnosis, but as it is, she’s never been so anxious for the familiarity of her lab, for the numbing, sleepless schedule. Left alone with her mind, all she has found are memories, big ghosts that hover over her chest until she inhales them in her sleep. Left alone with her mind, all she has found is Wolfgang.

_They would have stayed in bed the first morning, but it was Thursday. They hurried to work. He walked and she drove. They glanced at each other as they paced over the Bundespolizei Crest in the lobby, him to the left and her to the right, then disappeared into their departments._

_He found an excuse to bring her coffee only an hour later, asking her about a case that could justify the collaboration of police and forensics. She barely heard him, her eyes too busy gathering the details of his hands, his eyes; her heart was in her throat, her sweater sticking to her skin, just from glimpsing him at work. Her mind was still on the night before, and if the heat in his eyes was any indication, his was too._

_“This case is more complicated than I expected,” she finally breathed._

_He drank his coffee, outwardly composed. “We can talk about it later.”_

_“After hours,” she suggested._

_His lips twitched, and after a quick glance around, he leaned a bit closer. “My office.”_

His place, she translated in her mind -- this was the beginning of a careful code they’d develop over months; they never dated openly at work, which frustrated her until they broke up; then she was beyond thankful for the privacy.

_She nodded. “Seven?”_

_He agreed, then touched his hand to her desk and said, “Thanks.”_

_She breathed in, enjoying the game more than she expected to. “You’re welcome, Agent Bogdanow…”_

She blinks as the doctor waves the file in her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says to him, crossing her legs and forcing herself to sit straighter, hoping this will help her pay attention.

“I asked if you’ve had chest pain,” says the doctor.

“No,” she replies. “If I’ve been vaccinated, the chances that I actually develop the disease are very low--”

“Take the antibiotics,” he says. “I assume the BPOL requires it.”

“I’ll take the antibiotics,” she says. “I’m a scientist. I’ve been to medical school though I chose forensics over a hospital residency. I know how this works.”

“Great.”

“You remind me of someone,” she says coldly, adding, “I don’t want doxycycline. I want penicillin. I’ll come back if I’m allergic. I assume you’re running low on doxy and on ciprofloxacin, and there are plenty of people who need those more than I do.”

“Oh, doch,” he says mockingly.

“And I want to inject it. I can do that myself. I don’t like pills.”

He opens the file and scribbles something, then rips a prescription off the pad for her. “Knock yourself out. The nurse will be in for the x-rays.”

He leaves with the file, the door swinging shut. She blinks, wishing he’d come back despite his demeanor, and settles in for another wait.

_Wolfgang laughed as Kala pulled him into the center of the kitchen._

_“What are you--?”_

_She coaxed him into a sleepy dance with a glance down, a deep blush, then laughed too, the sound spilling into the night._

_“Just dance with me,” she whispered. “I’m too hungry to keep talking.”_

_It was late and the taste of rain was still in the air. The windows were open and an empty bottle of red wine sat next to her keys on the counter._

_“Do you think the driver got lost?” she asked after a moment of swaying with him, closing her eyes at his touch._

_He hummed, yes, and tucked his face into her neck. She draped her arms over his shoulders, pressing closer, then pushed up on her toes to kiss his temple. The corner of her gaze caught a smirk and soon she found herself sitting on the counter, his hands still tight on her waist from lifting her. She laughed loudly, keeping him close, and he touched a spot of wine off the U of her upper lip._

_“What are you doing?” she echoed, bright-eyed._

_“I’m going to make you dinner,” he replied._

_“We ordered a pizza,” she reminded him._

_He glanced at his watch. “An hour ago.”_

_“Mm, did you stiff the last delivery driver on a tip?”_

_“Yeah, kids need to learn more discipline,” he replies. “Tips make them soft.”_

_She nods, playing along. “Yes, you’ll single-handedly shape the next generation into responsible adults by tipping them badly. Or you’ll make them into anarchists.”_

_He grins. “I tipped her well.”_

_“Oh, her,” she notes._

_“This was before I met you,” he tells her._

_“The last time you ordered something was before you met me?”_

_He hesitates. “Before I met you again. After Munich.”_

_“I must not have made as strong of an impression on you as you made on me,” she jokes. “I never saw anyone after I met you in Munich.”_

_“You also never saw anyone before you met me in Munich,” he reminds her._

_She touches her nose to his and nods. “No.” She glances at him. “Does that scare you?”_

She can’t remember ever feeling insecure or ashamed around him -- the way he held her always snuffed those particular emotions, even when they had plagued her all day. But she was curious why he didn’t question her cautious choices, especially the fact that she was still a virgin when she met him. She supposed at first that he was rather conservative himself, being a police officer with a single mother he had always taken care of, but she quickly found this supposition to be wrong. He was a bit old-fashioned, but not conservative -- at least, not in the way her parents would appreciate.

She asked him once if he found her choices strange. He said he didn’t. She wondered if he had put her into a box -- one of those good girls, the kind that sends money home to the parents she idolizes -- and she couldn’t entirely blame him if he had. But he had shaken his head at this suggestion. He explained that very little surprised him. That he’d learned not to form expectations one way or the other.

She believed him. She still does. But now, she sees that it mattered very little what he thought of her before they were together. The other question she asked him -- does that scare you? -- mattered far more.

Does that scare you? Does it scare you that I’ve never been with anyone? That how you treat me will be indelible in my memory? That your behavior will become the referent for everyone else I meet?

_He shakes his head. “You?”_

_“A little,” she whispers, then laughs and says, “I feel like I chose the steepest rollercoaster in the park.”_

_He laughs too. “I’m the steepest rollercoaster in the park?”_

_She pulls him closer. “I --” Then she stops, suddenly sincere. “Yes. Yes, you are the steepest rollercoaster in the park, and at first I thought I should have tried some other, safer rollercoasters before trying you, but the thing about the steepest one...is that you’re never prepared, no matter how you try to be...so you just have to…” She smiles gently. “Trust it.”_

_“The rollercoaster?”_

_“You.”_

_“Bit unclear on the analogy.”_

_“You’re very intense. And when I met you...I wondered if I was...ready for someone like you. If I would have been ready if I dated other men first. The kind of men my parents like.”_

_He nods slowly, considering, then says as he sets his beer aside, “You would have been miserable.”_

_“I know,” she whispers. “That’s why I’ve never been with anyone but you. And those men...well...I’m not sure they were rollercoasters at all. I think they were the line.”_

_“Exhilarating,” he agrees._

_She starts to laugh. “I could have picked another analogy. Hm. Ski slopes. And you’re a double black diamond.”_

_“Did you intentionally pick two things you can ride? Because you haven’t tried that yet.”_

_She puts her finger on his lips. “Wolfgang.”_

_He moves her hand and kisses her before growing solemn again. “I’m not going to fuck you over .”_

_She tries to smile, but her lips tremble. “Okay.”_

_“Hey,” he says softly. “Kala?”_

_She’s suddenly aware she had enough wine to easily transform humor into tears._

_“I don’t wish I had done anything differently,” she whispers. “Don’t make me wish I had.”_

He never did make her wish that, even after he left. She tried to regret being with him. She tried to mask her rage and hate with regret, and for the first wretched weeks, this worked. The mistake was hers. She had been stupid to trust a man like him. Her parents had been right. She should have sought assurances. She should have kept her secrets and her body to herself.

But anger kept whitecapping in her mind. It lashed against her familiar harbor of penitence and remorse until the rocks melted to sand. It dashed the ships into splinters and washed out the bridges she had built to cross during storms. It demanded to be felt and it demanded that she admit the truth.

She had been right to trust him. He was careful with her, reverent and gentle and responsive. He loved her as deeply as she loved him. Leaving was his mistake, and she could loathe him for that, but she couldn’t regret her choice to be with him. Though losing him left her raw, spiritually fractured, she couldn’t regret her time with him before that. Those months were the best of her life and she would rather have experienced that crushing happiness, then lost it, than never have felt it at all.

She didn’t wish she had done anything differently. She wished that he had, which made this his responsibility to fix. Her mind lulls as she slides her fingertips along a plasticky seam on the exam table. _Fix_. As if there’s a chance of reconciliation.

The door opens again, admitting a nurse hauling a portable x-ray machine. Kala gives a perfunctory smile and removes her necklace so it doesn’t glare on the x-rays. She pockets it. 

_I’m not going to fuck you over._

She inhales and holds her breath in her lungs, staying still as her eyes blindly wander the exam room.

_Okay_.

She remembers her voice being very small when she said that. She remembers his gaze going soft. She could not have foreseen him leaving her alone, not after that hungry, tipsy night. _I don’t wish I had done anything differently._ Don’t make me wish I had. He stared at her after she said this. He looked into her eyes, pained, and brought her closer in his arms.

Then he said something that surprised her.

_“I actually didn’t date anyone after Munich. Because I knew you were it. I knew the first night.”_

_She shook her head, trembling. “What?”_

_“I tried. Couldn’t do it, kept picturing you.”_

_She thumbed his collar in her fingers, mouth suddenly dry. “What would you have done if you never saw me again?”_

_“I don’t know,” he said, then admitted, “I would have thought about you the rest of my life.”_

She wonders sometimes if she kept him from her family to protect him, not herself. They would have painted him a snake, drawing her into the trees to stumble upon golden poisons, a trickster god and stealer of souls. They would have forgiven her for being deceived by someone like him, but they would have been cruel to.

His crime was much simpler than they would have believed. He was afraid of the intensity of his love for her and he didn’t trust himself when he should have.

Kala apologizes to the nurse after a repeated request that she lift her arms above her head. She complies and glances out the small window as the nurse moves the x-ray machine into position. The alley below is empty except for a lonely bicycle and a cat, perched among some begonias on a porch.

It’s strange to her that the city itself is untouched by the disaster that struck it. The buildings gleam around the people dying inside of them.

“Alright,” says the nurse gently. “You can expect a follow-up call in about a week. Meanwhile, rest, plenty of fluids, and come to the hospital immediately if you’re feeling short of breath.”

Kala thanks her and leaves the room, walking past others waiting for antibiotics and lung exams, clinging to her purse and the crumpled prescription in her hand. She decides to walk home, hoping this will distract her from the memories holding her captive. But before she can reach the exit, she sees his face among the crowd, his eyes already on hers. She stops, buffeted by passing nurses, and steels herself. As always, her chest fills with hope at the sight of him, then grief.

“What are you doing here?” she says as he reaches her.

“I knew you had an appointment,” he tells her, the worry in his voice unmistakable. He’s become a touch skinnier in the days that have passed since the attacks, his face worn. He’s wearing a suit, which suggests the presence of many higher-ups at the bureau, and his nose bears two faint marks from glasses. “What did they tell you?”

“I didn’t ask you to be here,” she replies. Then she remembers Irina, who was exposed to the virus too, and is much more vulnerable to it than she is. She softens and glances away. “I’m sorry.”

“Kala,” he says gently, coming closer.

She briefly covers her face to gather herself. “I need antibiotics. I’m waiting on a lung scan.” She forces herself to look at him. “How is your mother?”

He gives a slight shake of his head. “If you need anything--”

“Wolfgang,” she says mournfully.

“Bad,” he says, tone clipped.

She nods, hugging her purse closer for comfort. “How -- how is work?”

He touches her arm to move her to the side of the hall. The easy contact shocks her and she decides he’s more exhausted, more distracted, than he has been in weeks.

“Come to my place tonight.”

She stares. “What?”

“I’m investigating it there.”

“It’s barely been a week,” says Kala quietly.

He comes even closer, lowering his voice to match hers. “Come over tonight. You’ll understand.”

She swallows and glances at the passersby in the hall, unsettled but aching with curiosity. “You want my help?”

“Yes,” he says flatly.

She shakes her head, teeth clenched against the agonizing familiarity of his warmth, his voice. She hasn’t been this close to him in months.

“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t risk my job.” She makes the mistake of meeting his eyes and three more words slip out. “I’m so sorry.”

He looks away.

“I -- if I can do anything for Irina--”

“Think about tonight,” he interrupts.

He hikes his messenger bag higher on his shoulder and turns, walking stiffly towards the exit of the clinic, and steps into patchy sunlight.

He has seen Kala look disheveled before, though very infrequently, and not like today. She often came to work after a sleepless night dressed immaculately, the lines of her button-down so crisp they could cut. After her father died, her appearance never slipped. But this afternoon, she’s visibly spent, wearing an old black camisole and a hoodie with the Oxford insignia, kept from her undergraduate days; she isn’t wearing her characteristic crimson lipstick or her ruby necklace, which he’s never seen her without, even in the shower.

He glances back as the doors to the clinic shut behind him, but can’t find her beyond the glass, which reflects the empty street. He turns down an alley, trimming off some distance between the clinic and the office, and glances at his watch. He stole away from work to see Kala, knowing he’d be missed after only a few minutes, because he doubted she would be honest with him over the phone. She would insist that she’s alright, he wouldn’t believe her, and she would hang up.

Seeing her was enough to confirm that she is fragmented. She doesn’t like to be alone, especially during times of uncertainty, and she has never faced such harrowing and tangible uncertainty. He shouldn’t be alone in times like this, because he can’t be trusted with himself, but he doesn’t dislike solitude the way she does. He finds clarity in it, terrible clarity, but she finds an endless well and dives.

He wouldn’t want to go through this crisis with her heart, her mind. She feels more deeply than he does, more deeply than most. His disregard for human goodness insulates him in times like these, but she’s an exposed nerve; he’s sure she has spent the last week in front of the television, unsteadily clinging to a cigarette or a glass of red wine, silently crying at the news.

She’s right to react this way. He’s the broken one, arguably the weak one, for renouncing any sense of collective grief, any emptiness. But unsurprisingly, he’s angry, not wounded.

And if he’s wounded, he’s transformed that unknowingly to anger, into hungry vengeance. The good-faith effort of the bureau is already too slow. His mother already deserves better. He’s already going to fix this alone.

He reaches the bureau just after 13:00, tucking his sunglasses into his chest pocket. He passes Agent Maliki in the hall, wary of his expression, and slows when he speaks. He’s near his office, far enough that he could keep walking and later explain he didn’t hear. But Maliki’s words stop him.

“Did you enjoy your lunch?”

He turns. “What do you want?”

Maliki smiles and gestures innocently, closing the distance between them in the hall. “How is Miss Dandekar?”

“What?” snaps Wolfgang.

The other man shrugs. “I assume you saw her. She had an appointment this afternoon after all.”

“I didn’t,” says Wolfgang, stiff and distrustful.

Agent Maliki runs his hand through his hair, then sticks it in his pocket and takes a long drink of coffee. He looks at Wolfgang for a moment, then tips his coffee towards him, complimentary.

“You two hid it quite well,” he starts, voice soft. “In fact, I think I was the only one who knew.”

Wolfgang’s jaw twitches in annoyances and he tightens his grip on the leather strap of his bag.

“It was the party last year,” Maliki continues. “That benefit at the museum.”

Wolfgang remembers this party, mostly because of what he and Kala did afterward.

“She was wearing a gold dress,” he says. “You were flirting with her, which wasn’t surprising. But I noticed something. It was an innocuous detail, really, to everyone but me. Do you remember it?”

Wolfgang doesn’t answer.

“She was drinking a martini,” Maliki continues. “Vodka. With an onion. A rather unusual order. And you ordered it for her, before you ever spoke to her that night. I watched you glimpse her across the room, and then you went to the bar to get that for her.”

Wolfgang gives a slight shake of his head. “I don’t remember.”

“I do,” says Maliki crisply. “I hesitated putting you two together on this case. Clearly your relationship ended, and clearly you regret that it did. Or you feel tremendous guilt. Either way, I did hesitate. But I decided Ms. Dandekar’s professionalism would moderate any hostility.” He looks at Wolfgang. “And any affection. I sincerely hope that I wasn’t mistaken.”

Wolfgang’s jaw tenses. “Your premise was mistaken.”

“You still protect her reputation,” remarks Maliki, shifting to allow several officers to pass.

“I protect mine,” Wolfgang says coldly, turning towards his office.

“Agent Bogdanow?” the other man calls. “It would be wise to ensure that I am the only one who knows. And Mr. Berner, of course. The director will doubt your commitment to the case if he learns that you are partners with the woman you love. And I’ll freely admit...losing you two would compromise my intentions for this case. For this city.”

Wolfgang turns just before shutting his door. “Berlin doesn’t give a fuck about your intentions.”

***

Kala slips her fingers through her hair, coating her ends with conditioner, and tips her face up. She lets hot water pound on her closed eyes and run over her skin, carrying away the sterile smell of the clinic.

She tries not to think of the comfort and relief that Wolfgang would have given her if the attacks had occurred a mere year ago. He would have been at the clinic with her, holding her while the doctors diagnosed her, blitzing them with questions. She wonders if the same images have played in his mind, if his appearance today was driven by guilt -- and if not guilt, simple longing for the past.

He excused his presence with something practical, an invitation to his apartment, but she suspects he couldn’t keep himself away regardless of this. He seemed to study her, however briefly, to get a sense of her health, her sanity, and it’s hard for her to admit or accept that he does still care. That he might, in fact, still love her. That he might want her back.

She closes her eyes harder against the water. She knows that going to his apartment would be stupid, but she’s tempted to go for this very reason. Fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty would lower her inhibitions. She might start to cry. He might touch her arm. A kiss would only seem right. She would wake up tomorrow in his bed and --

_And what? Start over?_

She rinses her hair out, then nabs a razor and bends to shave her legs.

She hates that she misses his voice, craves his touch and his taste, wakes up from needy, sweaty dreams about him. She hates that she can’t replace him. That he exists in her mind like a stubborn dog, fighting his own departure, ripping at the frayed ropes that contain her most intense memories.

She hisses as she nicks herself with the razor. She feels that her mind should be on the victims of the attacks, that her own grief should temporarily fade, that she should not, certainly not, be thinking of the way her ex-boyfriend would glance into her eyes when they were making love.

She shivers despite the shower and presses her hands into her face. On days like this, she can rarely suppress old images, which come to her without warning or provocation.

_Her eyes fluttered at his taste. She missed his taste all week, and the gentle brush of his stubble. She missed feeling small under him, missed the heat of his skin and the way he filled her. Five days apart was enough to make her almost wild._

_“How was Rome?” she made herself murmur._

_He chuckled at her attempt to seem composed, lifting up and beginning to unbutton her shirt. His knuckles brushed her nipples through the fabric and she licked her bottom lip, looking up at him with lost eyes._

_“Hot,” he replied._

_She pressed her hips up to feel him and swallowed, suddenly salivating.“Did you bring me the coffee I asked for?”_

_He had gotten home just minutes ago. His suitcase was on the floor in her kitchen. She’s not sure they even shut the front door, distracted by an impatient kiss._

_He nodded, kissing her neck and tossing her shirt to the side. She opened her legs around him, tugging her skirt up, too greedy to get methodically undressed._

_“I missed you,” she mumbled as his lips returned to hers._

_He tucked his face into her hair, kissing her jaw and sliding one hand up her thigh. “Missed you too. Love you, babe.”_

_She tipped her head back, groaning when she felt him brush her entrance._

_“God, I love you--”_

_Her voice rose as he thrust into her. She groaned again, more quietly, and moved with him as they kissed._

_“Fuck, I missed you,” he breathed after a moment, taking her hands in his, guiding them above her head; he pressed them hard into the pillows, his fingers laced with hers._

She misses the love she felt in those moments. She loved him always, but the emotion was distilled when she was having sex with him. She heard friends describe sex as complicated, messy, a time when clarity must be fought for. But she never experienced that. Her feelings were crystalline.

She shuts off the shower, unsettled by this memory, and wraps herself in a towel. She stares at herself in the foggy mirror, an indistinct outline of black hair, brown skin, bright blue terry cloth. Then she gasps and touches her hand to her chest where her necklace should be.

_“You always wear this,” Wolfgang said, sliding his index finger along the thin gold chain around her neck._

_“I’ve had it since I was little,” she replied, warm, exceptionally comfortable under the covers as late winter sun spills inside._

_“Someone gave you this when you were little?”_

_“I wasn’t allowed to wear it outside,” she explains, savoring the brush of his fingers along her clavicle. “There was too much crime where we lived. Someone might think we had more than we did.”_

_“So where did it come from?”_

_“You won’t believe the story,” she said, glancing at him._

_He raised his brows, asking for a chance, and turned closer to her in bed._

_“My great grandfather served in the first world war,” she started. “He was sixteen. He was in France in 1914, Ypres Salient-- you can imagine how many times my grandmother has told this story so I remember the details-- and he was shot in the leg and sent to a hospital camp. But the camp was full, so the medics took over a mansion nearby. He recovered in the basement there. And...mm...this part is a bit controversial, so there are two versions.”_

_Wolfgang grinned lightly. “Go on.”_

_“My grandmother says...that her father found the necklace...when he was exploring the house as his leg was healing. But it would have been unlike him to simply take it. She said that he asked if he could have it, since his regiment had protected their land but…”_

_“Who would say yes to that?”_

_“No one, exactly,” laughs Kala. “My father thinks something else. He says he asked his grandfather about it when he was old enough to. And well, his grandfather explained that the true story might upset his grandmother.”_

_“A woman gave it to him,” guessed Wolfgang._

_Kala smiled. “Yes. Well, a girl, one of the daughters of the house. She helped the nurses by bringing food and water and always talked to him. I suppose it’s an odd thing to give to a man. She must not have had anything else to give him.”_

_“It must have belonged to her,” Wolfgang said quietly. “Must have been something her parents wouldn’t have noticed was missing.”_

_Kala nodded. “Yes, I thought so too.” She hummed and glanced at the gold in between his fingers. “He wore it the rest of the war and told the other men it was for protection. I’m sure they laughed at him but he outlived most of them.” She reached for her coffee, cradling it among the bright white sheets, and took a careful sip. She looked at Wolfgang again. “I thought the story was so strange as a child. I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t have sold the necklace once he returned to India. No one ever described him as superstitious or even sentimental. I…” She flushed and glanced into her coffee. “Well, I wonder now if he was in love with that girl, though I would never say that to anyone in my family.”_

_“What did your father think?”_

_Kala smiled again, more distantly. “He had only spoken to his grandfather about that once. It was his grandmother who told him the story and she never mentioned a girl but...but my father said there was always something in her eyes when she told that story. I don’t think she could resist telling that story, it was such a good story, but she knew what she was leaving out.” She shook her head softly. “I’ve thought about going to France, looking through local records…”_

_Wolfgang chuckled. “Do you think you have relatives there?”_

_She grinned. “It’s not impossible.” She drank more coffee and slid her toes along the top of his foot, angling closer. “When I was little I liked to wear it and pretend to be a soldier. My mother absolutely hated that. And when I was a teenager and going to college, I wore it for good luck. But since I met you...well, I guess this is strange since you didn’t give it to me, but it seems...” A touch of color rose in her cheeks and he moved his hand along her waist. “It seems romantic to me now.” She looked at him. “You’re the only one who knows I wear it. I always keep it under my shirt at work.”_

_“I know that,” he agreed, moving his fingers along the necklace until they brushed the top of her breasts._

_She took his chin and brought him closer to kiss him, tasting strawberries on his lips; they were in Hamburg for work, and they stayed at the hotel one extra day, indulging in fruit plates and endless coffee, a view of the harbor where the ships tirelessly docked._

_“I don’t know if it’s true,” she murmured as she pulled away. “I suppose it doesn’t have to be. But can you imagine? I wonder how many people fall in love and never see each other again.”_

_He breathed in, feeling the necklace again._

_“That nearly happened to us, didn’t it?” she went on, much more quietly._

_He stayed still for a moment, then let the ruby fall on her skin and took her face in his hands. He kissed her hard, then rested his head on hers._

He never shied from his love for her. She never doubted its depth or intensity. She never had to coax it from him. He made clear with each glance, each touch, that he would die for her if she asked.

She rummages around on her couch for the hoodie she tossed off after the appointment at the clinic, reaching desperately in the pockets for the feel of a slender chain, a teardrop ruby. She closes her eyes in trembling relief when her fingers lock around the clasp. She fastens the chain around her neck. Then she stands still, shivering in her towel, and opens her eyes.

When she found the necklace missing, she thought first of that morning in Hamburg. She thought first of Wolfgang, not of her family. And as she stands alone in her flat, she realizes that her memories of him will never be easily dismissed. She will not grow old and forget him. She will never struggle to recall his eyes or his voice. Her most powerful memories belong to him as much as they belong to her, and he is as reticent to let go as she is.

***

She arrives at his apartment around six, but he doesn’t answer the door -- Felix does, hair in a pathetic bun, drinking a Red Bull. Based on the mumbles within, he isn’t alone.

“Wolfie’s with his mother, half his department’s here, we’ve got some hackers, a doctor, some engineer who’s also like. A plumber? Unclear. Pizza should be here in twenty.”

Kala blinks at Felix, unsure how to respond beyond a nod.

She follows him inside, stiffening against the familiar scent of coffee and piney cologne. The apartment is much the same. Clean and chilly, lit poorly, sparse except for a collection of books on the tables and shelves. But she has never seen it so crowded. She can’t recall ever seeing anyone but Felix and Irina here, but tonight, she sees Agent Bak, along with several others she recognizes from the agency; a tall young woman with purple glasses and a tattoo behind her ear, a man she recognizes as the security guard with the Kenyan accent, a man with hair messier than Felix’s, who's guarding a large equipment bag, and to her great surprise, Dr. Caplan.

She startles when Amanita meets her eyes. She hurries to say hello and Amanita gets up from her perch next to several microscopes (taken illegally from the agency lab, no doubt) and greets her by taking both of her hands.

“God, it’s good to see you!” she whispers. “I don’t know anyone here.”

Kala nods. “I don’t understand, what are you doing here?”

“Wolfgang called me. He said he needed help from a doctor who was familiar with this case. Honestly? I was too curious.”

“I thought you hated him,” says Kala mildly.

“I do,” agrees Amanita. “But they suspended me because I came into contact with the virus and they’re questioning me about the drone. I haven’t been able to work a day since this happened.”

Kala glances around at the others, some of whom are staring at her, interested in her identity. She keeps close to Amanita, lowering her voice.

“He did tell you that his agency hasn’t condoned this?”

“I know,” says Amanita seriously. “But I can’t work until I get my medical clearance and if I don’t do anything, I’ll go crazy.” She glances at the row of computers set up on the dining table, then touches Kala’s arm to bring her a bit closer. “I want to come to my own conclusions about all of this, and I don’t think I can do that if my only access is through the hospital.”

Kala nods slowly, about to reply, but then she feels a cold, wet nose press into her hand. She gasps and wrenches her hand away, staring down at a slender Shepherd, with brindled black and caramel fur and a dark blue collar. Her eyes widen and she holds very still -- she is frightened of dogs since one bit her when she was little. She looks at Amanita for guidance, swallowing, but a new voice startles her before she can speak.

“Moose,” says Wolfgang quietly.

The dog turns to greet him, putting her paws up on his waist and wagging hard. He nudges her down and scratches her ears, then glances at Kala apologetically.

“Sorry. I asked Felix to keep her in my room. Are you alright?”

She nods, unsure how he slipped into the apartment without her notice, and folds her arms tightly.

“Are you?” he checks, looking into her eyes.

She nods again, though she’s still tense from the adrenaline. He nods too, taking Moose’s collar to guide her away from Kala. Amanita watches him for a moment, then glances at Kala with peaked brows.

“So he’s softened up,” she remarks.

Kala bites her bottom lip, debating, then confides, “He came to see me at my appointment. I -- I know what he’s like, I know what you think of him, but he still cares about me.”

Amanita lets out a long, quiet breath and doesn’t speak. Kala looks across the flat as Wolfgang appears from his bedroom, her eyes going soft, and he catches her gaze. A silent plea suddenly surges in her. _Try again. Show me you’re sorry._

He glances away before she does, shutting the door behind him and joining Felix near the computers. The woman with the tattoo glances over her shoulder at him, pointing out something on the screen, and the man with the duffel of equipment adds a comment. Kala breathes in, reminding herself of the risk she is taking by being here, but her thoughts are interrupted by another voice.

“You are the woman I let into the storage room, yes?”

She turns to see a handsome black man, dressed in a hoodie from the Technical University of Kenya, sporting a shaved head and a bead necklace, the kind she associates with surfer films. She brightens and smiles, nodding, and offers her hand.

“Yes, I remember you! I’m Dr. Kala Dandekar, and you?”

“Capheus,” he replies, adding, “I’m waiting for my paperwork to clear, so I work security right now. But I’m an engineer. I’m checking out those drones.”

Kala squints. “How?”

He pulls some goggles down from his head and taps the side of them. “They don’t self-destruct if the room is dark enough. And night vision helps with that.”

“There is a live drone here?” she asks in surprise.

“No idea where it came from,” says Capheus excitedly. “It’s really an incredible piece. The construction of it is...well, like nothing I’ve ever read about.”

Kala slowly nods, confirming what she already knew. “It isn’t homemade.”

“Oh, no no, so we’re talking Russia, China, India,” he lists on his fingers, then shrugs. “Of course, it could have been sourced by an enemy _from_ an ally. Now that...that would be interesting.”

Kala hums, unable to extract any interest or curiosity from her palpable fear. She nods to be polite, then glances at Amanita.

“Is there any coffee?” she wonders.

“We can make some,” says Amanita, sensing her discomfort.

“Would you like some?” Kala offers Capheus.

He nods and the three of them go into Wolfgang’s small kitchen. Kala counts seven seconds as she breathes in, two as she holds the air, and ten as she breathes out. She notices her fingers twitch, her feet slow as if they know better than she does, but she presses into the familiar kitchen. No coffee is brewing, so she opens the cabinet left of the stove and gets some beans out, followed by a grinder and some filters. She reaches into a nearby drawer for a spoon and points Amanita to another cabinet for mugs.

“You live here?” asks Capheus.

Kala holds still, her fingers tight on the jar of coffee beans. She doesn’t answer, accepting three mugs from Amanita, and goes to the fridge for cream. Then she closes her eyes briefly and glances at Capheus. She shakes her head.

“No, I used to,” she replies, hoping her tone conveys her reluctance to expound on this.

He nods, understanding, and asks where he can find the sugar. The three of them make enough coffee for the others, remarking on and off about the attacks and debating the competing theories, stopping only when Felix and the woman with the tattoo come in, carrying boxes of pizza. Kala sees now that the tattoo depicts the symbol which denotes power on a computer keyboard.

“This is Nomi, hacker friend,” says Felix, schlepping three boxes onto the counter.

“Hacktivist,” she corrects him, on the edge of a laugh.

She introduces herself to Amanita first. Kala notices Amanita lift slightly in her flats to be closer to Nomi’s height. She glances at Felix with a slight smirk.

Others filter into the kitchen for coffee and pizza. Capheus, two slices in hand, wanders back into a closet equipped for his examination of the drone, and Felix returns to the computers, sliding on a bulky headset. Kala, who isn’t hungry, pours two cups of coffee and joins Wolfgang at the wall behind the computers, which is pinned and taped with evidence.

She offers him one of the mugs and he accepts it warily, glancing at her, then turns back to the spread of photos and documents.

“I’m surprised you came,” he admits.

She thumbs over the rim of her coffee cup, tracking the photos of bomb particulates, blackened serial numbers, drone wings that remind her of iridescent dragonflies.

“I am too,” she replies quietly.

“They want me to investigate what went wrong,” he offers after a moment. “Not find who’s responsible.”

She rankles, the coffee turning sour in her mouth. “They assigned you to internal affairs?”

He nods, jaw tensing, eyes still fixed on the wall. “Only after they learned my mother is involved.”

“That -- that isn’t fair, you’re the best agent they--” She quiets, reminding herself than any adamant defense of him could give the wrong impression. She continues more primly. “That isn’t fair.”

“No, but it’s smart,” he mutters.

She breathes in hard but doesn’t reply, matching his eyes on the wall. The news drones in the background, various world leaders speaking to the events in Berlin last week, newscasters speculating, professors and generals offering historical perspectives. She hears Agent Maliki’s voice on the news for a moment, but doesn’t turn to watch. Wolfgang stiffens next to her and she studies him out of the corner of her eye.

Then Moose barks and scratches on the bedroom door nearby.

Kala wets her lips with her tongue and hesitates just a breath before speaking. “When did you get a dog?”

“Few months ago,” he tells her, putting down his coffee. “She needs a walk.”

Kala checks to see who will notice her missing, but finds Amanita occupied in a conversation with Nomi, and Felix typing furiously.

“I’ll go with you,” she says softly.

Wolfgang looks at her, surprised, but nods. She sets her coffee aside and zips her jacket, taking out a cigarette while he lets Moose out of his room. She skirts the dog, taking out a lighter, and he holds the back door for her so she can step out. She breathes in the first drag of her cigarette, rain gently falling, and looks down the empty alley. The city has been quiet since the attacks, abiding by an unspoken curfew.

“Keep her on that side,” Kala asks of him, eyeing Moose.

He nods, holding her leash short. Kala glances down and hugs herself as she breathes out a cloud of smoke.

“Maliki knows about us,” Wolfgang says quietly, their soles echoing on the wet pavement.

A year ago, this news would have thrown her into a sleepless spiral of worry, but tonight she simply blinks. “How?”

“The party,” he replies. “At the museum.”

Kala remembers being late for that party, because her flight from Mumbai was delayed. She remembers rushing into her gold heels and mismatched earrings. She remembers sipping a martini and pretending that Wolfgang was a stranger, until they found a moment alone.

_He kissed her in the elevator, along the wall of the parking garage, messy, heady kisses. She teased him quietly for being so hard so quickly and he crushed her against the side of his car, his hand in between her legs. Then she pulled him into the front after her, panting, and looked at him as her breasts spilled out of her tousled dress._

_“My place?” he asked, his eyes glassy as he stuck the key in the ignition._

_She swallowed, then stilled his hand on the keys and pulled them back out. She glanced out of the windows at the parking garage, then shifted onto his lap, her arms around his neck._

_“Make out with me for a bit,” she whispered, nipping at his earlobe before kissing him under his jaw._

_“If you kiss me again,” he mumbled, “I’m going to fuck you right here.”_

_She grinned. “Promise?”_

_He spread his fingers on her breastbone, watching her. She pressed a gentle, playful kiss to his mouth. They exchanged a breath, both motionless. Then he gripped her closer._

“I remember,” she says faintly. “I didn’t think anyone saw us.”

Wolfgang glances at her. “No one saw us. He noticed I ordered you a drink. Vodka not gin. An onion, not an olive.”

Kala nearly laughs. _A martini! We made love for an hour in our car and Jonas noticed a martini!_

“God,” she says. “He said this to you?”

Wolfgang nods and says crisply, quietly, “I don’t trust him.”

“I’m not sure anyone does,” she replies. “But I’m not sure anyone distrusts him, either.”

“That’s why I don’t trust him,” Wolfgang tells her.

Kala stays quiet for a moment before murmuring, Does it matter?”

“It mattered enough for him to stop me in the hall.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she says, but she knows she spoke too soon. Jonas Maliki never seemed a stickler, a judge, a whistleblower. If anything, he was a survivor, and he sunk his teeth into whatever, or whoever, could help him. Kala flicks her ash away. “What did he say?”

“He said he has plans for us,” replies Wolfgang, caught between a scoff and a laugh.

Kala knows Wolfgang too well to expect details. She nods, shivering as wind sweeps down the alley, and the memory of his arm wrapped around her waist nearly trips her. She once lived to be alone with him on cold nights.

“He’s a narcissist--”

“He’s our boss.”

She presses her lips together at his interruption, but doesn’t argue. “Does he know we don’t see each other now?”

“He knows I saw you today,” he says, adding with a strange softness, “we need to be careful.”

She inhales and tips her head back to breathe out the smoke, their steps forming dull drum beats on the asphalt. Moose snuffles like a faulty snare and Kala can’t help but wonder what she is walking towards.

“I’ve always been careful Wolfgang,” she replies, voice soft.

“Fucking martini,” he mumbles.

She exhales hard, then presses her hand to her face and snorts. She feels his eyes on her but doesn’t hold back laughter, too stressed and too sad to show restraint at something this absurd. “He noticed a martini.”

Wolfgang hesitates, then laughs too. “Yes. He did.”

“Oh, I’d love to slap him,” she admits.

“What kind of asshole notices that?” he asks. “I’d notice two people leaving early to fuck in their car. Not a martini.”

“I still cannot believe you--”

“You started that.”

“I did not!”

“You did. I even warned you.”

“I --” Then she snorts again. “I was a little drunk.”

He glances at her, hesitating, then says softly, “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

She breathes in. “You can’t say things like that.” Then she whispers, “Me too.”

He takes the cigarette from her fingers, taking a drag. “I miss you.”

“Wolfgang--”

“I miss you.” He flicks the ash off. “ I fucked up.”

She swallows. “I -- do you remember that morning in Hamburg? When--”

The sound of a shot rings out and she instinctively presses against Wolfgang, her hand closing around his wrist. She breathes hard, eyes suddenly wet at the prospect of a gunman, another bomb, another attack. A second shot sounds and she pulls him towards his apartment, trying to run.

“Kala--”

“What are you doing? Move!”

“It’s a car, babe--”

“No, no, it’s not, it-- why aren’t you moving?” she asks frantically, tears pouring down her face.

He stops her and pulls her closer, studying her expression. She shakes her head, terrified, and tries to break away.

“Kala,” he says gently. “A car backfired.”

“Twice?” she whispers.

“Yes,” he says.

She lets out a choked sob and coughs, then looks down. She slides her hands up his chest, crying quietly, and hugs him. He inhales in surprise, his hands finding their places on her hips, and she trembles.

“Please just…” she trails off, her voice small and breaking. “Just stay here with me a moment.”

“Have you talked to someone?” he asks softly.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” she says.

He rubs her back and she presses her face harder into his chest.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers after a moment. “I can’t...I can’t work with you…because all I can think about is you now...and I…”

“We could try again.”

She sobs and clenches her fists in his shirt. “You left me alone! You knew my father was dying and you left and you couldn’t be honest with me about your mother--”

“I’m sorry--”

“--I trusted you--”

“I know.”

“You’re the only man I’ve ever loved, you -- you’re the only person I’ve ever slept with, you’ve had other girlfriends but I’ve only had you--”

“I only loved you,” he says flatly. “I still love you.”

“I hate you,” she whispers. She hugs him tighter. “God, I hate you.”

He rubs her back again and mumbles after a moment, “Want to fuck someone else in the office to get back at me?”

She can't help giving a weak laugh. “Jonas?”

“Can you imagine? Probably quotes Proust just before he sticks it in--”

Kala suddenly shakes with laughter. “ _Wolfgang_.”

“Not Proust? Okay, Ayn Rand? Who do you think?”

“I think if a man quoted Ayn Rand at me in bed...God, what’s the opposite of an orgasm? Hm. An iron gate would slam shut between my legs. And I would throw away the key,” she whispers, adding with another peal of laughter, “I haven’t had sex in almost a year.”

“That explains why you’re distant and bitter.”

“Not everyone is as comfortable with casual sex as you are.” She sighs quietly. “I lost my virginity to you. And you left me.”

He rubs a bit lower on her back.“Do you remember what you said to me?”

She hums at the feeling of his hand and murmurs, “When we were making love?” She laughs helplessly. “I told you I was new at it. And you said you knew. And I...” She snorts. “I asked you if you had done this before. You looked very offended.”

“I thought you were asking me if I’d had sex before, not if I’d -- popped some girl’s cherry--”

“Wolfgang.”

“What else do you want me to call it?”

“Anything else.”

He laughs and she grins gently, then hums. “You were sweet.” She breathes in the scent of his sweater and her eyes flicker under her lids. “The way you looked at me that first moment.” She gives a small smile. “God, I was so shy. I think you liked that.”

He shakes his head slightly. “I didn’t care if you were shy or not. I liked how…” He breathes in. “How genuine you were. You never tried to be anyone else for me.”

Her face grows warm. She’s grateful it’s hidden in his chest.

“You made me feel so…” She steadies herself with a breath. “God, you made me feel so beautiful, the way you looked at me.” She thumbs over the bone behind his ear, humming in thought. “You always kissed me when I was…” She swallows. “You always kissed me when I was about to come. I loved that.”

She notices his breath accelerate. “Fuck, Kala..."

Her eyelids flutter. “It’s good you have company at your place.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because I think I would do something very stupid otherwise,” she says quietly.

“We can go to your place.”

She sniffles, a few tears falling again. “No. Just keep holding me.” But then she lifts her face towards his. “We...we never did say goodbye properly…”

He looks at her intently, tempted, but then he glances down. “I’m not saying goodbye to you.”

She sniffles. “We...we can’t make this what it isn’t, Wolfgang.”

“Tell me again that you don’t love me anymore,” he replies.

She lets out a shaky breath.

“Tell me,” he insists. “I’ll believe you this time.”

“Do you think I would be here right now if I didn’t still love you? I -- I love you, I’m always going to love you. That doesn’t mean I should be with you.”

He breathes out hard. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I -- I’m not sure I’m meant to be in any relationship, Wolfgang, I --”

“Kala,” he says tersely.

She gives a trembling shake of her head. “I can’t get hurt like that again. I--”

A relieved shout interrupts them. “There you two are! Fuck!”

Kala turns to see Felix striding down the alley, his phone on the flashlight setting. Moose barks at him, then whines and wags her tail against Kala’s leg.

“We’ve got something!” Felix says as he reaches them. “The engineer guy. He got those frequencies to line up. We’ve got them bugged! Shit, man! No one took a piss in your beer, let’s go!”

They stare at him.

“Right right, you’re having a moment,” says Felix. “Did you hear me? We’ve got them! And they’re speaking some funky language. So Miss Linguist. Stop getting Wolfie’s hopes and or dick up, and let’s go.”

Wolfgang swears and glances at Kala in apology. Her jaw tenses in annoyance and she purses her lips, but she lets go of him and puts her hands in her pockets. She walks stiffly behind him and Felix, avoiding Moose, who trots nearby and sniffs at a currywurst wrapper.

“What do you mean you have them bugged?” Wolfgang asks him.

“The engineer guy figured out how they were accessing the drone remotely, so we matched that up, beamed it back down -- you’re not a tech guy, just trust me - and we picked up their signal using their own tech. Fuckers. And people think this shit is foolproof. Not for Felix fucking Berner.”

They return to the apartment, where the others are gathered around Nomi’s laptop, all silent as a faint conversation is broadcast. Kala breathes in, her eyes flashing as she meets Wolfgang’s gaze.

She recognizes the language instantly. She’s spoken it since she was a child.


End file.
